EmpowerU

EmpowerU is a personalized mobile application that provides patients and their caregivers with patient education and care support to improve patient empowerment.

Scope

Problem Framing
Product Strategy
User Experience Design
Learning Content Design

Timeline

Feb. 2022 - Apr. 2022

My Role

Product Design
Instructional Design
Design Strategy
Research

MOTIVATION

This project was inspired by my experience of taking care of my grandparents in the hospital for several months in 2020. That firsthand experience made me realize that there exist many challenges faced by both patients and their caregivers during both hospitalization and home-based aftercare.

On the one hand, physicians and nurses are often too busy to give each patient and their caregivers enough attention and explanations. On the other hand, many patients and caregivers often feel anxious and even scared when dealing with diseases. As a result, patients do not have good care experience, which may reduce clinical effectiveness. In this case, I hope to improve patients' and caregivers' care experience through user-centered design.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Most Americans do not have positive healthcare experiences. The current provider-centric model of patient care fails to fulfill effective and satisfactory care experience due to structural limitations. Shortage of staffing, high cost, and uneven access to healthcare become the barriers of patient-centered care.

76% Americans

have not had a recent positive healthcare experience

139,000

Physicians

Shortage by 2033

60%

Burnout rates

for physicians by the fourth quarter of 2021

$12,914

Each Year

healthcare cost per person

* Data Sources: Forbs, Association of American Medical Colleges, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Research shows that better patient care experience are associated with the following aspects:

Better
Patient Safety

Improved

Clinical Outcomes

Health Service Efficiency

Improved Health-related

Business Metrics

WHY A NEW SOLUTION IS NEEDED?

Though different healthcare players initiated practices to enhance patient-centered care, they have not achieved good results --patients' participation and engagement rates are low.

Healthcare Organization

initiated new strategies

Systematic Problems

-Execution obstacles from traditional organizational culture

-Lack of institutional support for clinicians

Disease-specific Programs

provided rehabilitation programs

Systematic Problems

-Patients lack information

-Programs have long time duration (several months)

-Onsite service is not convenient

Information Technology Tools

managed data and information

Systematic Problems

-Dispersive and lack personalization

-Some physicians are not accustomed to using portals to communicate with patients

WHY WORKING DIRECTLY WITH PATIENTS?

In the US healthcare system, there are three main stakeholders -- patients, providers, and payers. From economic perspective, providers' incentives come from compensations other than patience experience. Payers make payment to providers directly. There exists insufficient patient empowerment, which includes patient education (knowledge) and care. In this case, it is feasible to empower patients to engage in their treatment process and improve care experience and quality.

Patients

Providers

Payers

Two physician compensation methods

Pay for service: May lead to overuse of medical care
Pay for performance: May lead to underuse of medical care

Creating a new solution for patient empowerment

PROJECT OVERVIEW

EmpowerU is a mobile application that provides patients and caregivers with personalized patient education and care support, which enables them to actively engage in treatment to improve life qualities during both hospitalization and home-based aftercare.

Patient Education

Care Support

THE SOLUTION

Personalized Mobile Application

To combat the challenges, a mobile application is designed to provide patients and caregivers with knowledge and support on disease, care strategies, nutrition, and mental health at one place. In addition, the design applies the health belief model to support behavior changes. Furthermore, it generates personalized content to meet patients' various needs by collecting data from personal information, assessment, and doctors' recommendations.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Primary competitors-EHR (Electronic Health Record)

Currently, most patient engagement products are created by the Electronic Health Record Companies. These companies' main business model is to provide health providers with digital tools. Though the products' target audience are patients, they are mainly designed to support care providers with administrative features. Patients are able to make appointments, check in, visit virtually, access to health data, and make payment here. However, empowering patients to improve their quality of life are far more than the above.

INITIAL RESEARCH

What is patient empowerment?

Patient empowerment refers to helping patients gain knowledge and acquire self-management skills, enabling them to actively engage in treatment to improve life qualities. It is an approach to guide patient education with a focus on patients, whereby patient-centered care is a necessary component.

Which aspects does empowerment include?

Which patient-centered care principles should we apply?

USER RESEARCH

Observe patients', caregivers', doctors', and nurses' behaviors, interactions, and environments in the hospital and at patients' home; Interviews patients and caregivers' challenges and pain points in terms of patient empowerment.

Field Research and Contextual Inquiry

KEY FINDINGS

01/

Lack knowledge and care strategies

02/

Feel stressful

03/

Have various care needs

04/

Need caregivers'

support

05/

Make behavior change is difficult

Patients

Patients usually feel stressful

Patients do not have channels to learn care strategies

Children, old people, and patients with sever illness usually need caregivers

Knowing what should do is not difficult, however, make behavior change is hard

USER INSIGHTS

Need information and knowledge

Healthcare and self-management information and knowledge

Disease-related knowledge
Treatment and care approaches
Self-management skills
Track body conditions for future reexamine

Need motivation and agency

Motivations to learn knowledge and manage themselves

Control of illness
Psychological coping
Positive understanding and framing
Social participation

Need continued support over time

Support to make behavior changes and maintain mental health in the caring process.

Healthcare professionals’ instructions, feedback, and interactions on how to take action
Families’ encouragement, supervision, and assistance
Peer and friends’ sharing and encouragement

Need caregivers as partners

Treat the patient as an individual
Understand the patient’s situations and needs
Know how to take care of this person

CHALLENGE

1. Which specific learning knowledge and care strategies do we need to provide?

2. How to support patients to make behavior changes for long-term care?

3. How to transform disease-based treatment model into patient-centered model and respond to various needs?

STRATEGY AND CONCEPT

Specific learning content and care strategies

I mapped all required knowledge aspects based on user research and existing literature.

In terms of care strategy, there is no universal strategies that apply to different diseases. I collected common diseases' care strategies and coded them into a more unified framework.

Step 1: Collect care strategy frameworks from research literature

Step 2: Code frameworks into a unified framework

Support patients to make behavior changes

Making behavior changes is mostly required for patient's diet habits. Many chronic diseases have specific diet requirements. Changing habits is hard, how to make it happen?

Health Belief Model

*Data: Becke, M.H. 1974. The health belief model and personal behavior. Health Education Monographs 2: 324-508

According to the Health Belief Model, we need to provide users with each motivation factors to support them make behavior changes.

Transform disease - centered model to patient-centered model through user personalization

The complexity of the needs and patient context warrants personalized care plan and support, which includes different dimensions and timely information of care for the patients and their caregivers.