Designing for Efficient Healing on a Virtual Care Platform
About
Founded in 2018, Oshi Health is an integrative, virtual-first care model for gastrointestinal (GI) patients. By taking a multidisciplinary approach—with providers, health coaches, dietitians, and therapists—Oshi supports patients with personalized care plans. Through this value-based care model, Oshi provides effective care while lowering healthcare costs.
For the capstone project of my product design program, I noticed an opportunity to promote patient adherence on Oshi’s mobile patient portal.
Please find a 15-minute presentation of this case study here.
Role
UX designer
Timeframe
April 2024
Deliverables
Mobile application (prototype)
Adhering to health recommendations is easier said than done.
Oshi’s patients meet virtually with their providers on a regular basis to discuss their care and what to work on between sessions. But, independently following healthcare recommendations is hard. Patients are often exhausted and discouraged, making seemingly small behavioral changes feel like huge mountains to climb. Not to mention, people are busy, and trying out a new breathing exercise or diet can often fall between the cracks.
Patient ‘Next Steps’ are nested deep within the current platform, under visit summaries. Despite there being a ‘To Dos’ tab, it holds only administrative tasks and typically remains empty. In this project, I explored how the ‘To Dos’ tab could be redesigned to support patient adherence and efficient healing, from a business and user perspective.
SCOPE
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Competitive analysis
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Usability testing
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Card sorting
DEFINE
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Problem statement
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Business impact
IDEATE
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Comparative analysis of design options
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Provider workflows
PROTOTYPE
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Information architecture
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Mid-fidelity wireframe
TEST
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Usability testing & iterations
How does the problem affect Oshi's business?
Approaching this problem, I first turned to Oshi's competitive landscape to understand how ‘between sessions’ adherence may affect Oshi's business model and positioning. Through research, I segmented emerging GI care companies by their care model and business model:
Unlike the many care models that operate through a direct-to-consumer self pay model, Oshi appears to be the only company in the space to have successfully garnered partnerships with health plans, which likely take the form of value-based contracts.
In these risk-sharing arrangements, Oshi earns a portion of the difference if they care for a patient for less than the agreed upon baseline cost. In other words, Oshi makes money when they heal patients more efficiently.
This competitive research guided my approach to the problem. On one hand, we should not over-engineer the To Dos feature such that it enters the self-guided module realm, because this is ultimately not Oshi's competitive advantage. However, on the other hand, any feature that supports patient adherence and efficient healing will generate revenue through Oshi's business model. Striking this balance became critical.
Understanding user behavior
To test the hypothesis that users find it difficult to locate their ‘between sessions’ tasks, especially because the To Dos tab leads them astray, I conducted a moderated usability test.
ABOUT
CHALLENGE
PROCESS
SOLUTION
IMPACT
Given that Oshi partners with private insurers, I selected participants across range of ages and healthcare utilization to reflect the diversity of a beneficiary pool.
The users were given the following task scenario: You recently had an appointment with your dietitian, who recommended a few changes to focus on before your next visit. Now, you want to find those recommendations. How would you find them using the platform?
The task scenario resulted in a low direct success rate of 37.5% of users. The majority of users (62.5%) had indirect success, navigating first to the To Dos tab and increasing the time-to-completion by nearly 45 seconds on average.
Users with indirect success first entered the To Dos tab, where they toggled around until eventually navigating to appointments.
A fork in the road...
Given that the To Dos tab was a key source of confusion, the usability test illuminated two main paths forward:
I compared these design options across a few key parameters, ultimately finding that utilizing the To Dos feature (option #2) had a positive impact across the board that could justify the higher technical investment. Based on this analysis, I decided to move forward with redesigning the To Dos tab.
Patients and providers
Oshi’s platform has two users: patients and providers. With providers burdened and burnt out by paperwork, it was to imperative consider how the design would impact their workflow.
‘Visit Summaries’ are consistently formatted, with ‘Next Steps’ presented in a numerical bulleted list. As such, I designed a 1:1 system wherein each bullet would constitute a To Do.
By utilizing the existing content, this design (pending technical insight) will allow providers to focus on the patient, rather than on paperwork.
Testing & Iterating
After completing a mid-fidelity wireframe, I revisited a few of the participants to test the efficacy of the design with a moderated usability test. The users provided very helpful feedback and identified the following areas for improvement:
Highlighting the provider department
Providing navigational context
The redesigned To Dos tab effectively prioritizes a patient’s ‘between sessions’ recommendations on Oshi's portal while minimizing the impact on provider workflows.
The design capitalizes on the opportunity to promote efficient healing, thereby improving the patient experience while also supporting Oshi’s business model.
By approaching the problem through a competitive analysis and user testing, this design excavated the sweet spot between patient and business incentives.
In the future, I would love to collaborate with Oshi’s technical team and providers to ensure that the solution meets technical constraints and provider ease, as well as monitor impact on patient adherence.
Key takeaways
UTILIZING USABILITY TESTING
Usability testing was instrumental in scoping the impact of the problem on potential users, and both validated and guided the approach.
CONSIDERING THE SIMPLE OPTION
Although my assessment led me otherwise, it was important to consider the un-glamorous option of simply deleting the To Dos tab.
ALIGNING BUSINESS AND USER GOALS
Value-based care models uniquely align business and patient incentives for efficient healing. Designing for this junction is exciting!