Patrick T. Noble
Menu

Thomson Reuters

A patient's record in a clinician's pocket

Company
Thomson Reuters Healthcare
My role
Senior User Experience Designer
Dates
Jul 2010 to Jul 2014
Platform
iPhone apps for health information exchange (mHIE)
The mHIE demo on three iPhones: the home screen, a Welcome to HIE Advantage screen, and the demo menu with first responders, ED team and specialists, and primary care physicians

Process

  1. Understand

    Studied how clinicians and care teams needed patient information

  2. Define

    Wrote personas and workflow scenarios

  3. Explore

    Designed proof-of-concept apps and an interactive demo

  4. Build

    Delivered designs for mHIE

  5. Measure

    Recommended holding mHIE as too early for the market; a white paper; a granted patent

The problem

Health information exchanges were starting to let providers share patient records, but the information sat on desktop systems, away from the clinician at the bedside or on the move.

My role

I designed the iPhone apps for Thomson Reuters' mobile health information exchange. My personas and workflow scenarios became the basis of a published white paper.

Key decisions

  1. Scenarios as the source of truth.

    I wrote workflow scenarios for each type of clinician and care coordinator, and those scenarios shaped the product, the white paper and the patent.

  2. Recommending not to launch yet.

    On mHIE, usability testing showed that patient opt-in was a real barrier, and competing hospitals resisted sharing their patients' data with each other. Our project team recommended that mHIE was too early for the market. Years later the idea fizzled anyway, which likely saved the company millions it would have invested.

Outcome

A recommendation to wait, based on the usability and market evidence, plus a published white paper built on my UX scenarios and a granted patent from my designs (US20120296672A1, system and method for managing mobile HIE information).

View the workflow scenarios (PDF)

Looking back

I'd like to know whether we were simply far ahead of our time: whether the opt-in and data-sharing barriers we saw have eased since.

Images

Slide titled mHIE workflows by type: remote connectivity, consults on the fly and automatic notification
The three scenario types tested in the market: remote connectivity, consults on the fly and automatic notification.
Slide showing the end-to-end journey: first responders at the scene, the patient admitted and treated by the ED team, and discharge
The end-to-end journey across three phases of care: first responders, the ED team and specialists, then primary care.
Slide with five iPhone screens of a first responder looking up a patient's record from the HIE
First responders: bring up the patient's record from the HIE on a phone.
Slide with iPhone screens of an on-call cardiologist reviewing a patient and consulting
ED team and specialists: an on-call cardiologist consults from an iPhone.
Slide with iPhone screens of a discharge alert opening a patient's HIE history
Primary care: a discharge alert opens the patient's HIE history.
Cover of the white paper Mobile Health Information Exchange, February 2011

White paper

Mobile Health Information Exchange (February 2011), built on my UX scenarios.

Read the white paper (PDF)

From the mHIE workflow scenarios deck (Thomson Reuters, 2010). Patient data is made up for the demo.