FastCare
FastCare: Your Gateway to Accessible Healthcare
Product Experience
Problem Statement
How can we enhance healthcare accessibility and reduce the travel burden for individuals, particularly those in rural areas of Nigeria, ensuring they have easier access to high-quality healthcare for non-emergency consultations?
Problem Background
Our mission addresses the pressing issue of limited healthcare access in Nigeria, primarily in underserved rural areas. These regions often suffer from under-resourced healthcare infrastructure, leading to burdensome journeys to secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities. This not only incurs a financial burden but also diverts resources from critical cases. FastCare aims to bridge this gap by offering a user-friendly platform for non-emergency medical consultations, reducing travel, optimising resource allocation, and enhancing healthcare outcomes.
Research Insights
In our quest to deeply understand the problem, we conducted comprehensive research, engaging with 8 respondents through a survey. The insights gained from this survey are invaluable for shaping the development of the FastCare app.
User Pain Points
Our research revealed several crucial pain points experienced by our target users:
- Users face difficulties in accessing healthcare services, especially for non-emergency consultations, compounded by the limited availability of healthcare professionals in remote areas.
- Users are burdened by long and costly journeys to distant healthcare facilities. These journeys exact a toll, not just financially but also physically and emotionally, particularly affecting rural residents.
- Working professionals seeking medical advice confront significant disruptions to their daily routines, adversely impacting both productivity and well-being.
- A considerable pain point arises from limited access to healthcare services, often resulting in extended wait times for appointments, which can be detrimental to users' health.
Supporting Data
Our preliminary research findings highlight the severity of the situation. Notably, over 100% of the individuals we interviewed expressed profound dissatisfaction with the existing healthcare accessibility and delivery systems in Nigeria.
Feedback
The feedback from our user interviews validates the significance of our proposed solution. Over 80% of respondents believe that the FastCare app will effectively address issues like long wait times and unnecessary travel to healthcare facilities. This enthusiastic reception underscores the immense potential of FastCare to alleviate the identified pain points and enhance healthcare access for our target users.
Landing on the Solution
Our objective is to alleviate user pain points by introducing a user-friendly app offering non-emergency consultations with healthcare professionals. We will kickstart this initiative with video consultations to promptly address our users' immediate needs. FastCare's mission is to enhance healthcare accessibility, reduce the physical and emotional burden on users, and align with the burgeoning trend of digitised healthcare services. The FastCare mobile app represents a pivotal step towards providing a convenient and accessible platform for healthcare consultations, thereby fostering a transformative healthcare experience in Nigeria.
The FastCare MVP
FastCare's MVP encapsulates core features that offer an innovative solution to bridge the healthcare accessibility gap in Nigeria. The MVP boasts the following key features:
- This meticulously designed mobile application ensures seamless interaction with healthcare professionals through a simple and intuitive interface.
- The initial phase of the app supports video consultations, aligning with our research findings.
- Healthcare professionals create profiles with general information like specialty, availability and more
- Users can create profiles that provide healthcare professionals with pertinent information, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of consultations.
- The app incorporates a scheduling feature that empowers users to effortlessly book appointments and consultations at their convenience.
Future Steps
As we look beyond the MVP, we have several key objectives:
- We plan to introduce voice and text chat to provide users with a more comprehensive experience.
- Gathering user feedback is essential to enhance the platform's usability, performance, and overall user experience.
- We aim to identify and address other barriers to healthcare access faced by our users.
- Exploring partnerships with healthcare institutions, professionals, and organisations to further enhance healthcare access in Nigeria.
Learnings
Product Manager Learnings:
Abayomi Olabode
Co.Lab has been a profoundly enriching experience for me. Throughout this journey, I've gained valuable insights that have reshaped my approach to product development. Some key learnings include:
- Problem-Centric Approach: One of the most important takeaways from Co.Lab is the shift towards a problem-centric approach. Instead of fixating on solutions, I've learned the significance of thoroughly understanding the problem at hand. This shift in perspective has allowed me to identify root issues and design more effective solutions.
- Jobs to Be Done (JTBD): Co.Lab emphasised the need to invest in understanding the "jobs to be done." This concept has guided me in discerning the fundamental needs and motivations of our users. It's not just about adding features; it's about addressing specific jobs and tasks that our product should accomplish.
- Prioritisation: Prioritising features has always been a challenge, but Co.Lab has equipped me with a structured approach. I've learned to evaluate feature importance based on user needs, business goals, and resource constraints. This skill has been instrumental in optimising our product development process.
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
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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
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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:
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Developer Learnings:
Maurquise Williams
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- 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
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All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key
Developers Learnings:
Justin Farley
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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.