EasyChart
Secure, simplify and share your medical data
Product Experience
Problem Space
Problem Statement
How might we consolidate and present medical data intuitively for patients to facilitate effective healthcare decision-making?
Problem Background
EasyChart is a proposed solution to the complex and fragmented medical data management landscape, a challenge persisting despite significant efforts towards healthcare system interoperability. Our user research underscores the lack of a comprehensive software solution, with patients struggling to maintain a coherent record of their medical history across multiple healthcare providers. This leads to disjointed health understanding and errors in information transfer.
The rise of telemedicine and patient mobility has amplified the demand for a centralized, intuitive medical data platform. Traditional, bureaucratic healthcare practices, often reliant on inefficient systems like paper charting, contribute to inaccuracies in medical history and medication, leading to redundant assessments and tests. Healthcare providers confirm the need for complete, up-to-date, and securely accessible patient data, especially in urgent care scenarios. Challenges in healthcare data management include the need for accurate consolidation and storage of data from various sources, like EHRs and EMRs, in centralized repositories for improved access and interoperability. The healthcare industry, handling vast data volumes, is increasingly adopting advanced cloud storage solutions for compliance and security. Seamless access to patient records is essential for quality patient care, emphasizing the necessity of a centralized data system for both patients and physicians.
Digitization is a significant trend in enhancing healthcare data access. Personalized healthcare, dependent on detailed data, can significantly improve patient outcomes and provider-patient relationships. However, many current practices are hampered by manual, disconnected systems that negatively affect decision-making and patient experience. There is a growing focus on developing backend systems that consolidate data from multiple sources into a single platform, a need also highlighted by legislative initiatives like the 21st Century Cures Act. Such centralized systems aim to streamline data retrieval and eliminate paper-based system inefficiencies.
EasyChart is designed to empower patients, enabling them to become active participants in their healthcare journey. By providing a platform that aligns with their needs for privacy, security, and ease of access, EasyChart addresses the identified user requirements and current healthcare data management challenges. This approach is expected to enhance patients' ability to effectively manage their health, reflecting a shift from passive recipients to active health data managers.
Research Insights
User Pain Points
- Users struggle with the complexity and fragmentation of medical data management.
- Difficulty in tracking medical history, test results, and treatments across multiple healthcare providers.
- Reliance on outdated legacy systems for data storage and sharing, like paper charting, fax, and email.
- Concerns about privacy and control over access to their health data.
- Difficulty in efficiently summarizing and sharing medical data.
Supporting Data
- There is no widely adopted app for storing or sharing medical data, indicating an underserved market.
- Low satisfaction scores with existing solutions for storing (average score 5) and sharing medical data (average score 4).
- A third of users rely on physicians for medical data storage and sharing, leading to inefficiencies
- 80% of users indicate they or their physician utilizes legacy systems for the storage or sharing of medical data
- Users indicate there is no practical solution for sharing personal medical data, such as in a visit with a new healthcare provider
Feedback
- Several participants highlighted the need for a more intuitive and simplified method of managing their medical data, emphasizing the desire for a solution that minimizes the complexity involved in tracking their health records.
- Numerous users pointed out difficulties in securely sharing their medical history with different healthcare providers, expressing the need for a secure platform that simplifies this process.
- Some respondents requested a feature that allows for easy summarization of their medical history, hoping for a tool that assists in presenting their health information concisely during visits to new healthcare professionals.
Landing on the Solution
Based on our target users’ pain points, we knew we wanted to work on the following features:
Centralized Health Record Management: This feature allows users to consolidate all their medical information, including history, test results, and ongoing treatments, into one accessible platform. The health record dashboard is designed for ease of use, where users can either directly upload documents or use their device's camera to capture and store images of medical files. This centralized approach aims to reduce the complexity and fragmentation often experienced in medical data management.
Secure Data Sharing with Smart Health Card Integration: EasyChart offers secure methods to share medical data with healthcare providers, now enhanced by integrating the Smart Health Card feature. This addition allows users to store and share vital health information like vaccination records and lab test results in a digital format. EasyChart employs advanced encryption and robust privacy controls to protect this sensitive health information. The Smart Health Card integration is pivotal for maintaining user trust and ensuring data security, especially when transferring personal health information across different healthcare systems, thereby improving interoperability and ease of access to critical health data.
Medical Data Summarization Tool: This tool assists users in creating concise summaries of their medical history. It is particularly beneficial for visits to new healthcare providers or in emergency situations, where quick and clear communication of medical history is essential. The summarization tool can automatically highlight key medical information, making it easier for both patients and healthcare professionals to understand the user's health status at a glance.
Privacy Control Settings: EasyChart’s privacy control settings empower users with the ability to manage who has access to their health data. Users can customize settings to control data visibility, ensuring that their health information is shared only with authorized individuals and healthcare providers. This feature is fundamental in addressing user concerns about data privacy and control, a major pain point identified in user feedback.
User Flows/Mockups
Future Steps
Developing Advanced Analytics Features: To provide insights into health trends and predictive suggestions for healthcare management.
Expanding Interoperability with More Healthcare Systems: Ensuring EasyChart integrates seamlessly with a broader range of healthcare providers and systems.
Implementing AI for Personalized Health Recommendations: Utilizing AI to offer tailored health advice and reminders based on user data.
Enhancing User Experience and Interface: Continuously refining the app's usability and design based on user feedback.
Possible Additional Problems to Address:
- Ensuring data accuracy and up-to-date information in real-time.
- Addressing the varying levels of tech-savviness among users to make the app accessible to a broader audience.
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Joseph Fan
Building EasyChart was an informative exercise in product development. Here are my key takeaways:
As a Product Manager, thoroughly exploring and understanding the problem space is crucial. This foundational step ensures that the product developed is not only relevant but also effectively addresses real user needs, thereby enhancing the likelihood of the product's success in the market. It also helps in aligning the product development with market demands and user expectations, preventing the development of solutions in search of a problem.
Understanding user pain points, such as challenges in managing medical data, is essential in user-centered design. This approach leads to the creation of products that users find valuable and easy to use, thus fostering user satisfaction and loyalty.
Learning the importance of effectively prioritizing features and updates based on user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility, is crucial in managing a product's lifecycle, especially early on. This strategic approach helps in allocating resources efficiently and ensures that the product evolves in a way that continues to meet market and user needs over time.
Designer Learnings:
Designer Learnings:
Jo Sturdivant
- Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
- Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
- Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.
Developer Learnings:
Developer Learnings:
Vanady Beard
&
As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.
Developer Learnings:
Stephen Asiedu
&
As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.
Developer Learnings:
&
Developer Learnings:
Maurquise Williams
&
- Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
- Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
- Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.
Developer Learnings:
Jeremiah Williams
&
All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key
Developers Learnings:
Justin Farley
&
I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.