Clinical Pathways
An interactive clinical pathway application for clinicians to document what happens through the course of caring for patients.
Carnegie Mellon University – Human Computer Interaction Institute
During my summer at Carnegie Mellon, I had the opportunity to work as a Research Assistant alongside a talented colleague. Our project aimed to revolutionize the diagnostic process for clinicians by leveraging data-driven technology.
Understanding the problem
Working with UPMC, we were able to obtain their current clinical pathway documents to investigate their existing process of diagnosing a patient.
Clinicians were using PDF documents to diagnose patients with common illnesses. These PDFs were not interactive, and required the clinician to divide their time between reviewing procedures and documenting patient data.
Additionally, we conducted a field study to discuss with clinicians on UPMC’s clinical pathways and notes system. They were able to give us examples of how clinicians log clinical notes, and provided qualitative information for us to get started.
Who does this impact?
We identified three core personas to inform our design process. By conducting extensive user interviews with each of these job roles at UPMC, we were able to understand the diverse needs, goals, and behaviors of our target audience.
User Flow
After gaining perspective into how their current process works for diagnosing patients, we then moved towards defining the way information would flow through an interactive care pathway system.
We began defining primitives for information types. Our main goal in doing this was to figure out what actions the user would take to generate clinical note text.
Primitive Types
Checklist
“I did/completed this”
Returns Value
Implies that it is needed before proceeding to the next step
Can be numerical or categorical value
New Pathway
Transitioning to a new pathway
Primitive Mapping
After defining the various types of primitives, our next focus area was restructuring the current pathways in a way that made sense for our interactive pathway system. We took the PDF and mapped each step in the process, and assigned it to a primitive type to allow for ease of understanding when designing the application.
Sketching
We began with low-fidelity sketches to understand the idea behind what the application would do. Ultimately, we wanted to focus on the “clinical pathway” screen in designing, since this is the main purpose of the application itself. Understanding the path the user would take to get to that screen helped us understand what needed to be displayed on the screen.
Wireframes
We created a low-fidelity wireframe for testing purposes, to use for testing sessions with the UPMC clinicians. We wanted to illustrate the interactions within the application, and the different elements that make up the application.
Usability testing
We conducted user testing with two clinicians to gauge their experience using the application and gather valuable feedback for iterating. By observing their interactions with the application and interviewing them about their needs and preferences, we gained valuable insights into areas that required improvement.
Refining mockups
After considering the clinicians' feedback on the initial mockups, we worked on making the necessary changes to enhance the application.
Taking their input into account, we focused on improving the layout and functionality of the interface. Iterating on the design, we made subtle adjustments to the placement of key elements and incorporated clearer labels. Additionally, we fine-tuned the color palette to ensure optimal readability and visual appeal.
Prototype
Once the revised mockups were approved by the clinicians, we transitioned to the prototyping phase, translating the updated designs into an interactive prototype that showcased the refined user flow. This iterative process not only resulted in an improved user interface but also allowed us to gather more specific feedback from the clinicians, fostering collaboration and ensuring the final product truly met their needs.
Results
After displaying our final prototype to the UPMC clinicians, they were very satisfied with the final product. Overall, they agreed that the use of this application in emergency rooms would improve their workflow and save time for documenting patient visits.
We were able to showcase our project and learnings during a project poster event hosted by the summer program.
More Case Studies
Product-led Feature Growth: Self-Service Feature Upgrade Experience
A Better First Impression: Redesigning the Onboarding Flow
Designing for Scale: Building a Design System from Scratch