I led the design of the Care Guide, a tool for providing accessible and streamlined education for new mothers and their healthcare providers.
My Role
User Experience Designer
Product
Responsive Web App
My Contributions
Project Leadership
Research
Design
Testing
Challenge
Maternity Neighborhood provides a software suite for nurses and midwives caring for expecting mothers in hospitals and private birth centers.
Patients
During pregnancy, expecting mothers go through an incredible journey, often struggling with many questions, however, they often turn to information online which is often inaccurate and not evidence-based.
Healthcare Providors
Healthcare providers support their patients by providing expert answers based on modern medicine during visits, however often mothers have more questions than the time available during appointments, with long gaps between visits.
While providers gave out reading material often patients would fail to read.
The leadership wanted us to focus on these problems with these goals.
Provide new mothers with an engaging, accessible source of evidence-based information and education.
Provide maternity healthcare providers with a streamlined automated system for educating patients and answering questions.
Further Research
There was a lot to take on with this project. It was critical to partner with experts, learn from other systems, and gain educational partners.
I met with healthcare experts who led maternity care practices discussing the challenges facing them, their patients, and their organizations.
While providers often gave patients a packet of educational materials at the beginning of their pregnancy.
However, often the materials was forgotten or just didn't seem relevant to their stage of pregnancy.
Rather than read long materials, patients would often turn to online to ask specific questions.
I collected systems that focus on patient education to draw inspiration and insights. Competing tools provide patients with digital access to materials.
We approached organizations that produced evidence-based patient education material, to partner. Their library seemed the ideal format: short, engaging articles around common questions.
Collaborative Ideation
Because this was a new product in a very unknown domain I worked very collaboratively with experts in the early phases. We workshopped the experience to support our vision.
Patients could read and search a large library of articles on common topics.
The system could automatically deliver articles based on when it's most applicable for patients.
Rapid Prototyping & Testing
I workshopped the design through many iterations and many testing sessions internally and with customers.
These concepts came together is a set of features that working together created the seamless experience we were looking for.
Evidence-Based Library of Articles. Patients have access to a library of helpful articles written by reliable research-backed sources. The providers can even create and at their own practice articles.
Automated Delivery Each Week. Articles are set on a schedule so new mothers will get an email about every week with about two articles to read, giving them bite-size information spread out through their pregnancy and right when it's helpful.
Customizable Packets of Articles. Providers can create their own customizable packets of articles for common pregnancies, complications like diabetes or different languages like Spanish. Providers then can assign patients these packets at their first appointment.
Accessible on All Devices. The system is available on any device – mobile, tablet, or desktop. While providers often use the app on tablets or desktops, new mothers often use it on mobile devices.
With a complete prototype, I tested with customers, noting issues and gathering feedback. For healthcare providers, the tool was very exciting. This would improve the patient experience, likely improve the health of the patient during pregnancy, save providers time on visits, and enable them to have more clients growing their business.
Success & Learning
The Care Guide was launched to customers with a very positive response with many practices testing and finding enormous benefits to using it. It became one of the core features of the system.
This project would have been impossible without collaborating closely with domain experts. With them, I could interview, ask questions, brainstorm, and get frequent feedback. While not every project requires this, in industries with highly specialized problems it's invaluable.