CLIENT

UIC ENT Clinic

Create a mobile app to ease the waiting time process for patients waiting for their appointment.

GOAL

DUTIES

RESEARCH, STRATEGY, DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT

DEFINE

To address how the concerns of the UIC ENT patients have been addressed by the market, my team conducted research on the ways other apps have approached managing waiting room anxiety.

Marketing Research

Distract

Apps like Candy Crush and Youtube distract patients from their current wait. Patients often use them to entertain themselves while waiting.

Assist

Some clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices use apps that let patients fill out their paperwork and medical information digitally on their phone instead of a physical clipboard or during the appointment itself.

Inform

These apps encourage users to calm themselves. Through different methods, including visual, breathe, and sound based methods, calming apps find modest success in refocusing its users.

Calm

These medical apps focus on informing patients of the procedures and processes of their upcoming appointment. They can also provide more information about the medical staff and facility itself.

RESEARCH

Uninsured, working class patient who are often sick, in pain, or under a large amount of stress

The UIC ENT clinic worked hard to provide their patients with quality medical care. Due to their large patient pool, the clinic struggled with managing the large amount of appointments day-to-day. Patients received care but at the cost of hours of their time spent in the waiting room before their appointment. My team’s focus was to understand the reasons behind the long waiting times and create a solution to address the main pain points

Target Audience

Understand the reasons behind the long waiting period and how it upsets patients and find solutions that address them

Need

Affinity Map

AFFINITY MAP

  • How a patient feels/does along with what they say/think.

    • Unpleasant waiting room experience

    • Feeling like the clinic does little to improve their negative experience

    • Health issue being addressed.

    • Confirming good health

    • Need to understand condition

Research Methodology

USER INTERVIEWS

  • Waiting room patients asked about their time in the waiting room

    • Patients hate waiting for hours for an appointment that doesn't last more than 15 minutes.

    • Patients wish there was more information about why their wait is so long.

COMPETATIVE ANALYSIS

  • Based on primary and secondary market research, our group decided that our app will incorporate certain key features

    • clarity

    • friendliness

    • calmness

    • customization

    • information

    • layers of information

    • Productivity based

    • Entertainment based

    • Education based

Design

FLOW: The Calming Timeline App

The app developed for the UIC ENT clinic that demystifies the patient waiting experience. A visual timeline maps each step of the patient’s projected visit, from the waiting room to their appointment. Flow is informative with a interface that calms. From biographies of the medical staff to live waiting estimates, Flow lessens the anxiety felt by patients feeling their worst.

  • Doctor Search

  • Live Patient Queue Tracker

  • Timeline Process Onboarding

Features

PROTOTYPE

Conclusion

This project set all of us on our eventual career paths. Working with this group gave me a glimpse of what my future holds in strategic design and how to use it to improve conditions for underrepresented and underfunded populations.