MedHub

Overview

After the pandemic, I observed many close relatives struggling to book medical appointments and effectively communicate with their healthcare providers. New York, in particular, faced a surge in demand for medical attention. This project aimed to evaluate Mount Sinai's online resources and health portal, with the goal of improving the patient experience and, ultimately, alleviating pressure on medical practices.

Research methodology

Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected through surveys and interviews to understand participants' habits and interactions with health portals.

Quantative Interviews

At total of 33 participants surveyed about their habits in using online medical resources.

Qualatative Interviews

The interview criteria focused on users who relied on their patient portal to manage their appointments and medical data. This allowed me to focus the outcome of the insights.

Method: I conducted both in-person and online meetings for participants to answer a variety of questions formulated around their experience with online patient portals

Affinity Mapping

Method: After the interviews were conducted I created an affinity map to synthisize any insights

Users found that they were apprehensive of using any online tool but were open
Users found health portal application onboarding processes long and cumbersome
After the pandemic vulnerable patients are less inclined to go outside
When reading test results users were not sure what they meant

Literature review

Method: I asked users to join a teams meeting to answer a variety of questions formulated around their experience with online patient portals

"patients want to know how a test result will affect them and whether or not they need to seek further care after receiving a test result."

Baldwin, J.L. et al. (2017) ‘Patient portals and health apps: Pitfalls, promises, and what one might learn from the other’, Healthcare, 5(3), pp. 81–85. doi:10.1016/j.hjdsi.2016.08.004.

Overall the use of patient portals reduced the amount of calls patients made to practices
Patient portals that had chat services made patients feel more secure in the care they are receiving
Feedback suggests that the use and adoption of patient portals heavily depends of personal factors like, age, health literacy and education level
Among older patients challenges related to log-ins, UI design (color and font)

User Personas

After gathering data from users I divided insights to create three main user groups to taret.

Usability Testing

Method: To benchmark my iteration, I conducted a series of usability tests, including SUS analysis, task severity ratings, and observational interviews. I used insights from the results gathered in formative testing to iterate on my designs.

Low fidelity Mock-ups

First, I assesed the discoverability of the MyChart application and its high traction features and services. I thought about onbording, appointment bookings and test result features.

Formative testing

First, I conducted testing on MyMountSinai website, its portal and its high traction features and services

Method: I conducted a task severity rating with four participants—two frequent users and two new users—assigning tasks such as making an appointment, finding a doctor, and viewing and describing test results. A SUS questionaire was also sent to participants.

Sus results

63.30%

Task severity results

60.50%

Sumative testing

A second round of testing was conducted with the same participants, using the same task severity questions, along with SUS questionnaires to benchmark the first iteration of the mid-fidelity screens.