Simplifying Health Literacy with the MO: Medical Network
Industry
Medical AI device products
Focus
Diagnostics, Prescription detail, IFU distillation, AI companion, VUI
Purpose
Senior capstone
Timeline
20 weeks, Jan - May ‘21
Objective
Low health literacy affects over a third of adult patients in the US and can lead to higher mortality rates, longer-lasting health issues, and increased medical costs.
When it comes down to taking in information related to their health, this group can only read up to a 7th to 8th grade reading level while most medical instructions and discharge information are written at a 9th grade level or above. This leads to increased dependence on the health industry, long-lasting health issues, and increased medical costs due to frequent visits, especially to the Emergency Room (ER).
My Role: Content Strategy, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Usability Testing, User Research, UX/UI Design
Strategy
A social robot and healthcare assistant companion application that allows users to take their health into their own hands
The MO Medical Network, available both in the hospital and at-home. MO is a healthcare companion that provides patients with medical information and guides them through their treatment plan in a simplified manner to increase health literacy and end patient non-compliance.
A catered experience with the MO AI
MO is a healthcare companion designed to explain health concepts based off the user’s health literacy level. MO caters content based off user’s needs and aids them through their healthcare plan and healing process.
Improving the ER Experience
MO’s In Hospital interface is designed to aid patients through their ER experience. MO acts as a companion and trusted resource in the stressful and confusing ER experience, allowing for an ever-present clinician’s aid without hindering the clinician flow and priority.
Aid doesn't end in the hospital
MO’s at-home app is designed to work with patients as they continue their treatment plans at home. MO-bile offers easy-to-understand treatment plans and medicine explanations as well as catered activities and relevant articles to improve the patient’s health understanding and health literacy.
Patients: How might we encourage patients to take charge of their health and healthcare?
Clinicians: How might we aid clinicians in communicating information in a way the patient understands?
DESIGN PROCESS
Problem Statement
Low health literacy affects over a third of adult patients in the US and can lead to higher mortality rates, longer-lasting health issues, and increased medical costs.
Goal Success and Intent
Solve a meaningful problem in the world with design to disruptively improve human life using the most innovative, useful, and meaningful technologies.
Create a solution that falls in the center space of clinician communication, patient empowerment, and community education through the outreach of various target users.
Who are we focused on?
Projected target audience
Includes those that have a low measure of health literacy, meaning they understand medical information and materials at a lower rate on average. This is anyone who is over 18+, belongs in minority groups, on medicaid, medicare, and uninsured, and has a basic or below basic health literacy level.
US Adults (+18) and/or
Of minority groups and/or
On Medicaid, Medicare, or uninsured and/or
Have a basic or below basic health literacy
What research had to say
Our overall goals for our primary was to gain an understanding of common communication methods that clinicians use, examine how these experts are applying information to current known medical services and resources, and we wanted to estimate an individual’s understanding of their own health literacy. Talking to patients, clinicians, medical health experts, and subject matter experts, we sent out surveys and spoke in length to gain a preliminary and personal understanding of where the problem lied.
Opportunity areas
In affinitizating, we created a stakeholder matrix to really define the area of impact we could make in the scope of our users. We explored an institutional solution that targets basic or below basic health literacy and is accessible and inclusive to all.
Idea: Foster
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Top Concepts
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Concept Rationale
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Key Features and Functions
High aim: Take some burden of patient education away from the clinician, calm the patient in stressful situations, provide an extra reference for educational resources, and provide a physical form.
Idea: Development Rationale
How did we test this?
Users evaluated MO’s physical form in a simulated emergency room scenario. They expressed their emotions and thoughts regarding each form as well as ideas for improvement.
We also clarified on the direction of the digital architecture for the companion application.
With user elaboration, users stated said they would prefer seeing the information from treatment and visits together, so the sections were aligned and visualized as tabs on one screen. This was to ensure it was condensed so that the app follows the mental model of both present and past. Each function was addressed so the patient can take their health in their own hands.
With the listed information, the patient can deep-dive through the MO-bile app into more information related to their health condition and identify health concerns they can ask MO they learn in research.
With user elaboration, users stated said they would prefer seeing the information from treatment and visits together, so the sections were aligned and visualized as tabs on one screen. This was to ensure it was condensed so that the app follows the mental model of both present and past. Each function was addressed so the patient can take their health in their own hands.
With the listed information, the patient can deep-dive through the MO-bile app into more information related to their health condition and identify health concerns they can ask MO they learn in research.
If you don’t succeed the first time, try, try again
Let’s test this idea!
Hueristic evaluations - unmoderated
I held heuristic user testing evaluations to review the visual and interactive design of the third iterative prototype using Maze to take advantage of our user’s eye tracking.
With heatmaps, we were able to determine pain points in our task flows and see where our users had difficulty navigating certain portions of the application in the 6 tasks we presented to them. Out of 23 users, over 70% completed the missions successfully with a 21% indirect success with a small margin of error.
Quasi-empirical investigation
To really make these results conclusive and make sure our users really got to know how to navigate the system we conducted a few quasi-empirical evaluations with both professionals in the health industry as well as expert design professionals. With 9 moderated user tests over two rounds, we followed up with a USE Questionnaire to get a numerical basis for how the user engaged with the system.
Identification of key design elements // Improvements
From our initial designs for the learn page, we considered personal information such as prescribed medication, past questions on health asked through the application, and health topics pertinent to the patient’s condition. However, concept testing quickly showed us that we were not engaging with our users.
Users had little to no interest in empowering their patient rights or getting to know patient privacy laws. Rather, we recognized at this point we needed to develop more features of interactivity in order to retain user retention. To capture the needed learning focus and mindset, we needed to develop more techniques to make short-term impact last.
From this, I created “learning activities” where the user uses gamification to engage in learning information personalized from their patient diagnosis.
✏️ My top 2 learnings from MO: Medical Network
In ideating for a holistic solution, consider business challenges in curbing stacked problem areas. In theory and concept research, an idea can be sound but can face opposition due to lack of resources, subject matter expertise, seamless technological integrations, etc.
In a sea of key design elements, features, and tokens, create priorities based on user and stakeholder feedback. This will help narrow down the path for future direction and validate any concepts in design thinking.
SERVICE OFFERINGS
MO is a healthcare companion that provides patients with medical information and guides them through their treatment plan in a simplified manner to increase health literacy and end patient non-compliance.
in hospital
The in-hospital MO interface was created to give patients an outlet to ask their questions and receive accurate, easy to understand answers, without taking essential time away from clinicians.
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Hospital staff help button
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Available medical history and records
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Entertainment hub
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Activities to learn about relevant health concepts
in-home app
Patients can learn more about basic health concepts and how they relate to their own body, anywhere they want to. The MO app serves as a companion with you every step of the medical journey, inside and out of the Emergency Room.
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Daily Treatment plans & Tracking
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Visit Summaries
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Records of MO questions & responses
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Activities to learn about relevant health concepts
MO is with you at the hospital
Ask MO questions at any time regarding your health and hospital progress.
Discover health related games, shows, and articles while you wait.
Call for help from hospital staff without the hassle.
Look back at questions you have asked earlier in the visit.
View your chart in real time.
The value of VUI
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Immediate medical assistance
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Informs and entertains patients,
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maintaining patient satisfaction
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Outlet for healthcare advice and questions
MO’s key feature is its interactive Voice UI that is available for patients both within the hospital and when they return home. MO ensures that patient questions are not only listened to but are actually answered in the simplest way a patient can understand.
