Applying an unique AI-powered approach to a healthcare gap

Changing the way of making health related appointments via the force of AI

OUTLINING THE HEALTHCARE FIELD

Our first deep-dive into the ocean of wicked problems in the context of the first official project within the Ironhack bootcamp 2023 was connected to the following challenge:

Technology is changing the way we interact with each other. Many processes and tasks that required a long time to do in the past are now as simple as pressing a button. As the public system incorporates technological solutions to big infrastructures, our experience as citizens should see that change too. How might we transform the end-to-end experience in public hospitals? For this project, you could take the point of you of a patient, a doctor or even a visitor.

DIVING INTO THE PROBLEM SPHERE

After forming a powerful trio we eagerly started our initial brainstorming session and let our associations flow freely before conducting our secondary research.

Our primary direction was revised later on after sensing a major self-placed hurdle and discovering an inadequate grasp of our secondary research findings – our angle towards the spectrum of an possible task-tackle was frankly too narrow. A quick step back and look at the big project picture resulted in the space to express our collective need for a more suitable directory and we finally decided on a new angle: Find a solution for Public hospitals to simplify and optimize a scheduling system from a patient perspective.

Our main findings then revolved around the overall discomfort in discussing private health matters over the phone tied to common language barriers hindering an effective communication flow. The lack of autonomy patientwise together with the inaccuracy regarding the synchronization with personal calendars also raised our awareness eyeing on potential future features.

Utilizing the newly gained sharpened focus we conducted some user interviews which provided us with further insights into standing communication issues: we noted genereal feelings of frustration and discomfort tied to the act of making a phone call which result in overall uncertainty.

GAINING A STRUCTURAL PALAST

Catching the wave of an upswing we wove in a thread of structure troughout our key findings within the interviews via the putline of an affinity diagram.

We quickly sensed some major umbrella trends – like the overwhelming processual dissatisfaction tied to the core value of honouring one’s basic needs – and decided to align our main emphasis on optimizing the holistic experience in a more effective and adequate way. Summarized these issues had the potential to be solved by leveling up the overall process on a new digital level and providing flexibility for changing or canceling an appointment as well as receiving a confirmation and reminder beforehand to ensure the security package.

OUTLINING OUR USER BASE

Due to our unionizing instinct regarding the further direction we skipped the suggested voting-step and formulated a collective of user persona aspects which we later on combed through in order to create a polished version while simultaneously being thumb statistically (note to my future-self: prospectively to be improved) true to population.

The persona gave us an optimal outline for the sketching of the user journey map which tourned out to be a surprisingly valuable mirror to the edited real-life-szenarios trough the immediate need of putting in ourselves in the shoes of our persona and more accurately processing our journey in an abstract way.

DEFINING OUR SCOPE

Approaching the awaited ideation phase we conglomerated our gatherings into a well-balanced problem statement which represented the merger of insightful empathy and problem-orientation.

A busy working expat needs an appointment with a specialist at a public hospital because the scheduling process via phone is inconvenient for her. She experiences language barriers, poor scheduling process and a lack of autonomy in appointment selection.

UTILIZING OUR CREATIVE POWERS

Utilizing the created framework for future decision-making and prioritization we initiated the phase via the method of crazy 8’s and ultimately decided to create a mobile application with the exceptional functional addition of an AI powered chat bot that helps scheduling an appointment in a public hospital.

We imagined a system that seamlessly integrates artificial intelligence to streamline appointment scheduling, reminders and management.

BRINGING OUR VISION TO LIFE

Moving forward we transitioned from initial Lo-Fidelity prototypes – the earliest representations of our ideas in the form of simple sketches and basic wireframes that captured the core concepts of AI integration – to more refined Mid-fidelity solutions which served as interactive models that closely resembled the final desired product.

During the translation phase we identified minor potential usability issues within an early stage and solved them in an elegant and heuristically optimized way.

IMPLEMENTING FEEDBACK

User testing played a pivotal role in refining our Mid-fi solution. Due to other students of the cohort actively participating in usability testing sessions we were able to gather valuable feedback which highlighted areas for improvement and refinement.

LOOKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE

Design Thinking – THE problem-solving approach – has proven to be our guiding light during this journey. By placing empathy at its core it empowered our team to deeply understand the needs, challenges and aspirations of our potential users. It passed us through cycles of ideation, prototyping and testing wile contributing to continuous improvement. Through this methodology we not only solved problems but also crafted an unique holistic solution that resonates with current human experiences.

We hoped to inspire future-forward thinkers to further develop similar AI-powered approaches in order to strive for improved journeys within different healthcare systems.

Like this project

Posted Oct 30, 2023

Applying an unique AI-powered approach to a healthcare gap

Likes

Views

Clients

Ironhack