Institution
Indiana University (Capstone)
Project
MedRX
My role & skills
Project owner, single contributor
Prototyping
Strategy
UX design
UI design
User testing
User research
Background
MedRx was my senior capstone project while I was attending Herron School of Art and Design. As a pharmacy technician that was also working in the medical and pharmaceutical fields at FORCE Communications, I knew I wanted to focus on solving a problem that related to the medical and/or pharmaceutical fields.
A problem that I often faced while working in the pharmacy was that patients’ medical records did not transfer between hospitals and pharmacies. So, if a patient visited a doctor at one hospital and was prescribed a medication, the next hospital or pharmacy that the patient visits would not have record of that prescription. This leaves room for error in that the patient could be prescribed a medication that contains ingredients they’re allergic to or a type of medication that produces poor side effects for that patient.
Process
I began this project with extensive background research. First, I created a survey with basic questions about healthcare data management to see what problems needed to be solved for various user types. That survey received responses from patients, caretakers, pharmacists and physicians. I took the data gathered in that survey and began working on a competitive analysis to see if there were existing applications or software that may already be working to solve these problems. In short, there were systems that solved some of the user problems, but not in the way that I was envisioning.
I then created a research document with an extensive evaluation of the problems at hand, information from my competitive analysis, personas to reflect prospective users (based on my survey respondents) and design criteria to follow through in the design phase of this project.
Solution
MedRx is the hypothetical patient management system that would synchronize medical and pharmaceutical records to all hospitals and pharmacies across the nation. It would allow healthcare professionals and patients to have seamless communication and scheduling.
With this application, the patient will be able to schedule appointments, request prescription refills, and have all of the pertinent information regarding previous appointments and prescriptions in one unified place. Doctors and pharmacists would have synchronized data based off of the patient’s profile where they can view the patient history and make notes regarding appointments or prescriptions.
Ideally, MedRx would become the standard for healthcare technology and improve the quality of service and relationships between patients and their healthcare professionals. This application would allow for a more collaborative culture and challenge the barriers of shared information and technology. As McKinsey and Company stated, “a collaborative approach is necessary if pharma companies are going to stay ahead of healthcare digitization.”
