Category: Healthcare

5 best UX design trends in healthcare for 2022

Post author By Espeo Crew
Post date 07/06/2022

In the world of technology, everything is changing quicker than ever. This is especially true in the healthcare industry. During the pandemic, digitalization accelerated more than we would have expected. The healthcare sector faces new challenges but at the same time is finding better solutions for more issues. What are the top healthcare UX design trends that will dominate 2022 and continue to get attention in the next couple of years? Continue reading to find out.

Digital (remote) help

Telemedicine is probably one of the most popular healthcare UX Design trends right now that will be growing. This trend is likely to continue as more and more people need help as a result of COVID-19. While telemedicine does not always seem to be the best option for everyone and every situation, it can help more people worldwide. This is especially true in countries or areas where medical facilities are luxury or people lack access to them. Additionally, some users may find it more comfortable to manage situations remotely. What is important to remember is that telemedicine is also an option to reduce costs.

Telemedicine is still in its infancy, as not every medical doctor has access to the best tools. The area of medical apps is also growing rapidly but it is usually not available to all users that would like to have the chance to use it. Mostly because of the device requirement for those apps.

Patient-centric UX/UI design

One of the most important healthcare UX design trends is creating applications that are made especially for patients. It means that these kinds of applications should be created from the patient’s point of view. On the other hand, some apps designed for medical facilities are still not so user-friendly-oriented. There’s a whole room for this area to be explored and improved in the near future. People who have problems with vision, for example, should have the ability to adjust font sizes in applications. This kind of improvement around accessibility is crucial while considering UX design in healthcare apps. Another important element for patient-centric UI design would be making smooth graphics and visuals. Patients should be able to use healthcare apps and similar applications regardless of their skill levels with applications.

Source: Behance

Virtual and augmented reality

Virtual and augmented reality is one of another well understood healthcare UX design trends that should be on fire in 2022 and beyond. Our personal devices are more powerful than ever. Consider having a smartphone in your pocket that is capable of doing much more than a computer ten years ago. It is a normal thing today, and thanks to that, we have augmented reality in our pocket as well. Many apps are designed to help visualize elements or a whole thing thanks to augmented reality. Such innovations help with medical treatments. Furthermore, virtual reality is an important trend in healthcare UX design, as it allows for the creation of real 3D models. As a result, doctors and professionals are then able to treat patients in a better way.

Source: Dribbble

There is a whole spectrum of design that is targeted towards virtual reality. It is an even bigger topic than augmented reality so it is good to mention that in 2022, both of them will be growing. However, augmented reality will still be more accessible for most people. Some of the benefits of AR/VR tech:

Actions can be repeated in a training format (special reality with conditions)
Real damages to patient’s or equipment can be avoided in case of errors
Time and cost saving

Medical wearable technology

Fourth of our healthcare UX design trends for 2022 will be the growth of wearable technologies designed for health. Majority of wearable tech requires at least a smartphone with apps to run smoothly. This means that even diagnosing health conditions needs a special device, therefore UX designers need to pay attention to how it will be used. This is especially true when you think about designing such a device in a patient-oriented way for a better experience.

The best medical wearable technology is this kind of a device that does not look like a medical device, it’s working in a non-invasive way, and still gets you the data that you need. For many people around the world such a device is an Apple Watch, because it’s just a smartwatch that can measure a lot of your health conditions (mostly thanks to advanced algorithms) when you are living and when there is a need, it just sends you a notification. Can you imagine a valid ECG monitoring in a smartwatch ten years ago? I think absolutely not. Wearable technology is a big trend and will continue to grow in the future. For instance, in a study made in 2020 by PEW Research Center, 21% of Americans (around 70 millions people) claimed to use smartwatches or fitness trackers. And this is only one region!

AI and algorithms for health

As we mentioned earlier most of the data is now gathered thanks to advanced algorithms. Artificial intelligence is something crucial that we can’t forget because in healthcare, algorithms can find something in the data that we would look for another 10 years. Of course it’s just a metaphor but in many cases, AI can give advice based on a patient’s medical history in seconds thanks to processing large amounts of data. It’s a time-saving and cost-saving option for medical professionals. Moreover, algorithms and AI can help to automate paperwork or scheduling.

UX design trends in healthcare: summary

Healthcare is experiencing a boom in digital solutions right now. Above, we discussed the top five of them, which will still be trending in the near future. The healthcare industry is one of the most significant ones for new digital solutions. Why? This is because of its constant evolution in line with new technologies and new discoveries from various fields.

There is no doubt that IT is connecting the healthcare industry with patients more and more. For UX design, this means connecting new, emerging technologies and solutions with existing devices and apps in the most intuitive, user-friendly manner.

Do you want to discuss how we can help you use the above trends in order to grow your business? Contact us using the form below and we will contact you shortly.

Healthcare Technology

8 reasons why you should invest in a mHealth application

Post author By Espeo Crew
Post date 31/05/2022

It’s a fact that more and more individual and big healthcare providers are investing in the development of healthcare apps to improve the quality of their services. According to research by Grand View Research Inc., the global digital health market size is expected to reach USD 295.4 billion by 2028 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 15.1% over the forecast period. What is the reason for such significant growth? There is an increasing demand for the ability to manage healthcare needs online, given that many aspects of daily life are becoming more digital. With the convenience that healthcare apps provide, more and more people want to use mHealth apps in order to schedule appointments, review their prescriptions, or talk to specialists through a video call for online diagnosis.

However, there are many business advantages that come with the investment in digital products in the healthcare industry. What are these? Continue reading to find out.

The biggest healthcare players invest in mobile apps. Why should you do it too if you want to compete

Telehealth applications are not only beneficial to patients. From a healthcare provider’s standpoint, mHealth apps offer many advantages. Based on research done by Deloitte, the 8 top benefits of digital transformation within healthcare organizations include:

Better consumer satisfaction and engagement
Providing your patients with an application that enhances their experience when it comes to managing their health, especially one with functionalities that correspond to their needs, will increase their satisfaction.
Improved quality of care and patient outcomes
Thanks to the on-demand nature of digital solutions, your patients will have the possibility to access all the necessary functionalities when they need them. This means they will be able to receive the help they need in a faster manner, without having to e.g. drive to your clinic.
Ability to compete better with traditional players and disruptors
Entering the digital sphere means that you will have the competitive edge over healthcare providers that rely on traditional working models. Moreover, you will be able to reach and attract more patients who want to manage their health using digital solutions.
Revenue growth
By incorporating a digital app into your revenue streams, you will see your revenue grow in two ways: on one hand, the app will offer you an additional monetization method, and on the other hand, it will decrease additional costs, for example, in booking appointments.
Improved cost efficiencies
One of the ways that investing in a digital solution improves the cost efficiencies is that by enabling appointments to be made via mobile or web applications, there is a decreased need to employ a large team of people to handle bookings manually.
Increased agility and scalability around technology
After the initial investment in the application is done, it is easy to scale it up or down depending on the needs. If you find that your application is lacking a certain functionality, it is easier and faster to develop it and introduce it to your target group.
Better staff and employee satisfaction
A digital application can be also used to track and analyze your employees’ satisfaction. The ability to gather feedback from your staff will provide valuable information, so you can adjust and deliver results that your employees want.
Better data-sharing and collaboration with health players and other health systems
One of the most important reasons to invest in a digital application in healthcare is the possibility of storing valuable data in a more secure and efficient way. Having the data in the cloud, for example, makes it easier to analyze it and share it with other healthcare professionals.

In addition, digital technology enables patients to provide real-time feedback so that regulatory reporting can be completed within a few months rather than months. With quick feedback, consumer issues can be resolved much more quickly than with previous non-digital solutions.

What functionalities to include in your mHealth app in order to ensure its success?

Taking the above into consideration, healthcare apps offer many benefits not only to the patients but also healthcare providers themselves. However, most of the apps fail to meet the patient’s expectations, and thus do not support the business needs of health companies. To visualize the problem, let’s consider the app usage data. There are more than 400,000 healthcare apps available in the app stores but most of the healthcare apps have less than 10,000 downloads. How to design and develop a mHealth app that will be among the successful ones?

There are several functionalities that a mHealth application should have in order to be engaging and successful. We discussed them in detail in a recent article on our blog. You can find it here.

Do you want to develop an eHealth mobile app but don’t know where to start? We can use our experience and discuss your idea with you. Contact us using the form below and one of our colleagues will reach out to you to schedule a non-binding call.

Design Healthcare Software Technology

Caring for premature babies and infants who require special attention: mobile app for a daily development navigation

Post author By Espeo Crew
Post date 14/06/2021

Laboratorium Marzeń is a non-profit organization based in Poznań, Poland founded by Jolanta Uchman and Jolanta Żółkiewska. Together, they focus on helping families with premature infants and children who require special attention.

So far, Laboratorium Marzeń used e-books and events to promote their organization’s activities. Nevertheless, they had an idea for a mobile app that would help parents with navigation of their kids’ development and day-to-day lives.

With our experience and expertise in UX, we decided to take their idea and turn it into a reality as a pro bono project. For this reason, we helped the foundation with designing the app with a strong focus on the actual needs of the potential users and the struggles that they go through.

From this article you will learn:

How we approached the topic of specification list
UX: How product design workshop helped us focus on our ideas
How the prototyping process looked like
What we achieved as a result of our cooperation

Laboratorium Marzeń – taking a step back from the mobile app specification

A long list of specifications and modules were provided by Laboratorium Marzeń. To figure out which features would be the most impactful, we decided to step back and focus on the needs of the possible users. The following steps helped us achieve that:

Firstly, we conducted two interviews with parents and one with a specialist in the field – Jolanta Uchman.
Secondly, we organised a mini Google Design Sprint workshop in which. Jolanta Uchman and Joanna Żółkiewska were the participants.
Thirdly, we created a very interactive prototype of the app.
At the end, we conducted two usability tests of the prototype.

How product design workshop helped us focus our ideas on UX

Because of the current situation, we hosted the UX workshop online. Thanks to the use of proper methodology, we managed to get the most out of the three hours that we had planned for the meeting.

Summary of user interviews	10 min
Comparable problem	15 min
“How Might We” and affinity mapping	10 min
Current Experience Mapping	15 min
Break	10 min
User Journey Mapping	15 min
Importance/Difficulty Matrix	15 min
Solution Sketch	20-30 min

Sprint methods used during the workshop

To begin the process, we analysed the interviews with parents of a premature child and a child with a Down Syndrome. Then, we focused on current experience mapping. We emphasised the first moment when a user’s need occurs and listed out each step that they go through to try and fill their need currently. We included descriptions for each step and highlighted pain points.

After evaluating comparable problems, each participant created a user journey map which started at a discovery point – where the user does not use the app yet but learns about its existence. Along this process, more “How Might We” cards were created.

The next stages consisted of affinity mapping and creating a difficulty matrix of the “How Might We” sticky notes. Important parts of those stages were categorizing the cards and answering the question of “What if our app doesn’t have it, will it still be useful for users?”. This way, we created a list of the most crucial and urgent features.

Laboratorium Marzeń – UX Affinity mapping

The last step before working on the actual prototype was to draw a mock-up of what the user should see at some points of his journey by each participant of the workshop.

Prototyping the solution and getting the users feedback

Based on the conclusions from the interviews and our findings from the UX workshop, we created an interactive prototype of the app. In addition, we asked the interviewed parents to test it and give us their feedback. The response was astonishing. One user kept repeating how amazing the prototype was.

The reaction of the interviewed parents confirmed that our app for Laboratorium Marzeń will change lives of families with premature babies and children who have special needs. Moreover, thanks to the first-hand insights, we could carry out some minor improvements.

More than a regular app design

The founders of Laboratorium Marzeń didn’t have any previous experience with mobile development. Because of that, the role of our UX Designer wasn’t solely limited to the design part. To provide the best service possible, Maciej used his experience in application planning and prioritization as well as in assessment of implementation difficulties and optimizing the costs of feature maintenance.

As a result of our cooperation, Laboratorium Marzeń has gained a clear image of the most important pain points to address. Therefore, they now have a list of functionalities that the first version of the app should include. The final design of the app itself, which we were in charge of creating, is currently in the final stages of the development process.

“We started working on our application with a vision of what needs it should respond to but we had no idea how to go about it. The workshop with Mr. Maciej from Espeo Software was an amazing journey that took us from the initial idea of the application to a real prototype, which exceeded our wildest expectations. Professionalism, creativity, commitment and a focus on the needs of potential users at every stage of the cooperation were the characteristics that we valued the most at Espeo.”
Jolanta Uchman, co-founder of Laboratorium Marzeń

Do you want us to help you with the UX of your mobile app? Use the contact form below and one of our colleagues will come back to you shortly.

Blockchain Healthcare

Ways private blockchains empower patients to protect their medical data

Post author By Espeo Crew
Post date 06/11/2020
No Comments on Ways private blockchains empower patients to protect their medical data

Doctor on blurred background using digital medical futuristic interface 3D rendering

IT solutions have driven change in industries such as finance, insurance, and retail. However, there are also industries where systems are not as quick to change. The healthcare industry is one part of our lives where IT adoption is slow. Doctors and administrators still perform many repetitive tasks on paper such as storing and transferring data. Apps that use a distributed ledger are some ways to improve medical records storage, just as it is with pharmaceutical supply chains.

Medical records storage

One major problem in the healthcare industry is how hospitals, insurance companies, and patients themselves handle medical records. Inefficiencies in how administrators handle data impacts quality and only drives up costs for both providers and consumers. Healthcare professionals often have to transfer duplicate records each time a patient comes in. As a result, a lot of healthcare processes remain inefficient, on paper, and offline. One solution is to develop applications that enhance cooperation and cut redundant tasks.

Currently, in the healthcare industry, there are two kinds of problems. First is duplicate medical data and the second is that this data is neither transparent nor interoperable. This is detrimental to the industry and consumers because they lose a lot of time, and use a lot of paper documents for the same data. Before I start to analyze the problems and offer ways to solve them, we should understand the healthcare industry and medical data handling.

This data has to be secure — only authorized people should control the flow of sensitive medical data. One particular advantage of a blockchain-based medical records app would be its ability to control access to records while also distributing current versions to authorized people in the network.

The problems of electronic health records

Pictured above, the application stores and distributes patient data. At present, most institutions’ medical records storage is on centralized databases in which data remains siloed. This solution leads to duplicated health data and a lack of transparency. Today, patients expect a seamless flow of data, however. In Poland, for example, to found a company, we get a unique identifier, called a NIP number. We can then use this ID to identify details of our company in external institutions such as banks, insurance companies, or public institutions. Of course, this identifier relies on a centralized database.

Our enterprise blockchain app would rely on all stakeholders running a node to avoid any single point of failure. We have one identification of our patient/company based on the decentralized solution where we can enable access to their personal health data. This is the core of our solution.

We understand the healthcare industry and our software and blockchain experience help us realize how big the potential for blockchain solutions in the healthcare industry are. This technology helps eliminate duplicate records and helps patients, doctors, and administrators manage personal data and securely distribute it across a network of hospitals, insurance providers, and consumers.

Advantages of private blockchains

Our solution is based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric. Developed in December 2015, the private blockchain has supported blockchain initiatives in companies such as IBM and Intel. A private blockchain is the best solution for medical records handling because it enables safe, transparent data management. Patient data saved on the blockchain is available for everyone who has access for this data but only the patient can directly set access to this data. On the other hand, we have the trust of data between each medical institution. This transparent data management is comfortable and safe for all parties.

Pictured above, a blockchain app stores the data. Patients have their own public and private keys. Patients can take their medical data with them since it remains on the distributed ledger. Public keys help identify the patient in each medical institution system. Each medical institution can easily manage patient medical records with patient consent. The other medical institution doesn’t have to create the same data as the first medical institution. Instead, medical facilities share the data across the network.

On the other hand, each patient has a private key to sign the transaction. Private keys allow users to save data on the blockchain or share this medical data to other medical institutions. Health professionals can read this data immediately after receiving it.

Conclusion

The ability to store data in one secure place where we only have access to it because only we have a private key to manage this data gives us the freedom to decide where and how the data is visible. From our point of view, this could be the management of medical data 2.0 where the patient is the owner and manager of the data, not external institutions that process this data on our behalf. This approach may look strange, but the decentralization of communication and data storage forces us to look at the collection and management of data.

Many companies from the healthcare industry which are going to implement our solution could help patients and administrators better manage medical data. This not only makes medical data transfer more transparent but also empowers patients to take control of it. The medical data of the process 2.0 is the future which gives safety, freedom and another way to store medical data.

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