Senior UX Designer | Oak Street Health | 1 Month
A simple yet effective feature that reduced hospital admissions by 35%
Case Collaboration
How can we using AI advancements to create an egg freezing assistant to improve women's fertility success rates?
How can we create a new feature to easily flag and monitor high-risk patients, preventing them from avoidable ER visits?
Design Process
I believe in front-loading on user research because it's the fastest way to build a product people actually want. I strife to provide the evidence needed to support every design decision.
Role
As Senior UX Designer, I was the sole designer - I led the end-to-end design lifecycle, collaborating closely with Product Management and stakeholders from concept through launch with UI Designers and front/back-end developers.
Goal
Design an embedded “flag patient” feature that proactively surfaces high-risk cases, streamlines team oversight, and integrates within existing systems
Outcome
Delivered a feature in one month that reduced hospital admissions by 35%, cut identification time by 50% and lightened provider workload
Project Details
Meet Dr. Katz
A dedicated physician buried in admin work, taking time away from patients who need her most.
“I need a straightforward way to keep tabs on my most vulnerable patients without jumping through hoops.”
Meet Our Users: Providers Overwhelmed with Admin Tasks
“I want to feel like I’m not falling behind in life just because I haven’t figured everything out yet. I need support that gets me—something that helps me make smart decisions without scaring me.”
Tech Behaviors
Tracks cycle using Clue app
Uses Headspace for guided meditation
Shops online, values personalized recommendations
Comfortable with chatbots if they feel intelligent and friendly
Manual patient tracking is slow and error-prone
Existing tools aren't intuitive for flagging patients
Communication gaps hurt coordinated care
MadLib Post It Interview
I chose this type of interviewing style because the more relaxed envinorment tends to produce more honest, open feedback
Card Sorting
By separating into common patterns + themes, I was able to easily identify the overarching pain points + user needs
Analogous Research
My favorite type of research! By taking the pressure off of only analyzing the direct problem at hand, I am able to more freely ideate and brainstorm other possibilites.
Allow providers to “flag” patients - like favoriting a song in Spotify, creating a shared alert list visible across care teams without leaving the EMR
Research Methods
Challenges / Users' Needs
Quickly identify and track high-risk patients
Prevent hospital admissions
Help care teams work together better
Easy-to-use tool for flagging and categorizing patients
Real-time updates and notifications
A central place for team collaboration
Overwhelmed
Anxious
Distracted
"I don’t want to miss a high-risk patient just because I’m juggling a dozen charts at once"
Mapping User Flow
While this is not the most complex user flow, it's interesting because there are three possible starting points. This means the way to enter the flow needed to be universal and easily accessible within different parts of the EMR. We didn't have an icon like this, so I submitted a request to have it added within the Design System.
Lofi
This is only a small portion of the lofi but it strategically addressed all the user needs:
Easily accessible from any point
Automatic filter
Reduced opportunity for human error
Supports collaborative nature
Very few steps/clicks
Lives directly in the EMR
Translating User Research + Requirements
Design Viablility
"The system lets us be proactive, so nothing falls through the cracks. It's a huge relief."
Optimizations based on Feedback
Refining CC Filters
Problem
It was confusing to refine the tier level (not all CC patients are VIP — some are serious or good); some patients are in-active, but still appear on the list
Solution
Restructure the toggle to be an overall page filter (see problem 1 above), then remove tier as a tab, but instead have it within "More Filters" tab
Design Reasoning
This was a way to consolidate the tabs into more over-arching categories, such as: View, Provider, Center instead of having more minor details be a complete tab (ie: tier status)
Remove Toggle Button
Problem
It was confusing what was actually being switched "on" so we needed a way to create more clarity
Solution
To combat this, I changed the structure of the page. I added "Case Collaboration" as a new page filter instead of a toggle within the existing page
Design Reasoning
This solution provided more clarity and uniformity from a systemic level
Final Design
Key Call Outs
Key UX Feature Breakdown
Icon to "Like" "Favorite"
Research
Users need a quick button that's easily accessible
Design Strategy
Include a button that's similar to favoriting a song on Spotify that will live next to the patient's name that can be accessed anywhere within the EMR
Quick Summary
Research
Providers need a way to get top line data - reason for high-risk, who last saw the patient and when
Design Strategy
When the "up arrow" is filled in, a summary appears when hovered. Users can click to edit/archive.
Filter for Collaboration
Research
Users need a way to easily locate high risk patients to help other providers collaborate on a plan
Design Strategy
Have a quick filtering menu
Measuring Success
Lessons Learned
The Good
With just 3 clicks, patients lives are being saved!! It's so simple
The Bad
The limitations of the EMR software make the UI look very out of date and not as sleek as I wish it could be
Opportunities
If I had more time, I would want to make the filter easier to access (less clicks). But it would mean changing it from the ground up, which was a larger scope than what we had the resources for at the time