Patient Problem List for Physician Users
How a Small feature positively effected physician user experience
Challenge: How might we surface diagnosis codes to alleviate pain in common physician workflows without cluttering their screens?
My role: Senior Product Designer
Team: Product Designer (Me!), Product Manager, and three Software Developers
Skills Used: Rapid prototyping, interaction design, unmoderated concept testing, qualitative interviews
The Problem
ICD-10 codes, or diagnosis codes, give important insight into a patient’s condition and are frequently needed for clinical forms.
Until today, they did not appear in the problem list, which I learned was is a major pain point. This means physicians needed to dig through previous visits to find the right code, which meant too many clicks and a lot of user frustration.
“ICD-10 codes are not easily seen within a patient’s chart. They are not listed on the problem list next to the diagnosis that are being selected.”
This is the top voted request on our physician feedback board.
First iteration
First Iteration Feedback
“NO MORE GOOGLE SEARCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Awesome”
“This is fantastic!!!! We've been waiting so long for this. This will be so helpful in confirming that the correct code is attached to the problem without having to delete and reenter. Helpful when filling out paperwork and need codes.”
“I LOVE IT!!! it will be so much easier to find info for prior auths/ home health and other documents we have to process on a daily basis.”
Research
Multiple physician interviews uncovered areas that I could improve the design:
“The code should live next to the snomed name so clinicians do not have to click to see it”
"Providers are already overwhelmed with the number of clicks having to be taken. Could it be possible that the ICD-10 codes appear on the problem list without having to expand each individual problem. It seems the ICD-10 code is more specific anyway and should be just as visible as the snomed code"
"It would be nice to not have to click. Could it be present without clicking?"
Alpha Design
Results
This small technical lift and minor feature enhancement resulted in overwhelmingly positive feedback! Physicians described this update as “second Christmas.”
Next Steps
Physicians did note in feedback sessions from our latest iteration that there are areas this feature could be scaled. They would like more control and the ability to customize the codes that appear on the problem list. This points to workflow improvements outside of the scope of the problem we aimed to solve.