Checking in with Australia
Streamlining the medical appointment process in order to reduce wait times and front-end burden for practices via patient self check-in.
Client
Healthengine
Role
UI Designer
Timeline
8 Weeks / 4 Sprints
Team
Engineering/Marketing
Overview
Practices around the country are feeling the pinch in more ways than one. Since the pandemic, rising costs, staff shortages and a constant stream of patients has led to an administrative overload for many practices. Kiosk self check-in allows patients to check themselves in via an iPad kiosk upon arriving at a practice, thus reducing the administrative burden on front-desk staff.
“Something like a check-in kiosk would help ease the admin load on our front-desk staff, who have been stretched pretty thin since the pandemic.”
Role
My role for this project revolved around the delivery and creation of the new kiosk UI. This work was completed by myself, with design direction from a Senior UX Designer, Project Manager and one Developer.
Objective
Create the designs for all of the requisite screens for a patient check-in user flow. The screens needed to reflect a similar user journey to mobile SMS flow, which was launched ahead of the kiosk check-in product.
This project began with three primary objectives in mind:
1
The screen designs needed to cater to a wide varitey of user demographics. This meant that legibility and ease-of-use were of the highest priority.
2
In order to reduce administrative burden for practice front-desks, it was necessary that the screens and subsequent user flow contain minimal friction to ensure completion.
3
As highly sensitive patient information was appearing on screen, we had to pay careful attention to information fields and how they were displayed.
Constraints
The kiosk check-ins product needed to be accessible to a wide variety of users with varying levels of technological proficiency. As such, I decided to follow common design patterns in an effort to reduce user friction and cognitive overload.
It was also important to consider patient privacy throughout the user flow, as patients were required to confirm sensitive personal information at certain stages of the check-in process.
Our starting point
We began by defining the user journey for the parent SMS check-ins product. This allowed our team to collectively understand patient perspective as well as identify any potential hurdles that may arise during the build process.
Our next step was to create the kiosk user flow from the SMS check-in blueprint. As the kiosk product did not require permissions to use location services, the user-flow for this product was considerably less complex:
From the above flow, we surmised that the kiosk product would consist of 5 screens which required building:
1
Homepage to initiate the check-in process
2
Patient verification screen
3
Confirmation of patient details
4
Success message upon completion
5
Error message screen for failure(s)
What we created
1 /Homepage
Upon arriving at the practice, the patient will be presented with a home screen which highlights the ability to bypass front-desk check-in.
The user is then prompted to input basic personal details in order to confirm their identity.
2 / Verification
3 / Confirmation
Upon confirming their identity, the user is then asked to confirm details of their complete patient record including: residential address, contact details and Medicare card details. Redaction was a necessary consideration at this step, as sensitive information would be viewed on-screen.
4 / Success
This screen communicates a successful user check-in and indicates the end of the user flow.
5 / Failure
Failure during the verification process would lead the user to this screen, prompting them to visit front-desk to complete their appointment check-in.
Next Steps
Unfortunately, my time at Healthengine drew to a close upon completion of the UI design for this product. The product entered development soon after my departure and a roadmap was proposed post-build, which included the following action points:
1
User Testing to validate whether or not users found the flow of information to be logical and intuitive.
2
Improve the UI by exploring a more effective way to handle the redaction of sensitive information.
3
Validate with practice owners whether or not the introduction of check-in kiosks has helped ease front-desk administrative burden.