Exploratory project for athenahealth

Explore the healthcare experience for young adults and the individuals involved in managing it

📌 PROJECT SCOPE

• Client: athenahealth, Consumer Health Team

• Timeframe: 12 weeks (part-time)

• My Role: UX Researcher

• Team: Mia Eltiste with supervisor Claire Kohler

• Methods: Generative research, Workshop facilitation, Storyboards, Journey maps, Personas

• Tools: Figma, usertesting.com, Miro, Digital sketching, Teams

🚀 CLIENT KICKOFF

Healthcare is an inevitable service for millions of people — athenahealth works to make it a better experience. Since families, health needs, and resources vary from person to person: “navigating healthcare” may look vastly different because multiple factors affecting their experience.

🔎 OBJECTIVES

• Explore the healthcare experience for young adults and the individuals who are still involved in managing it

• Understand the pain points for all parties involved and search for underlying patterns

• Ideate how athenahealth can improve the experience to set young adults and their families up for success

✏️ NOTES

This was a professional experience project completed for my capstone experience during the last semester of my master’s degree curriculum.

Methodology

• Generative Research

• Data Synthesis

• Journey Map & Personas

• Ideation Workshop

• Storyboard Experience

 🔎 Generative Research

Families and individual health needs can be so different from person to person. What complexity exists among young adults managing their healthcare?

The Methodology

I conducted two rounds of research between 3 user groups, resulting in 45 unmoderated interviews on usertesting.com.

1. The healthcare experience both for individuals 18-25 who are dependents on someone else’s policy and the policyholders

2. The healthcare experience for individuals 26-35 who are currently navigating the healthcare experience independently

The second round of research included users to rate their confidence for certain tasks (gathered from the first round of research) on a Likert scale which provided some quantitative data.

The Process

• The research initially started only interviewing the dependents and the individuals involved

• Insights from the first round of research showed it would be valuable to conduct a second round with new policyholders to better understand the transition

• I took notes both within usertesting.com and organized them in Miro

Generative research findings

Round 1

• Dependents 18-25 years old are underprepared for the mandatory transition of getting off their parent or legal guardian’s policy

• Parents or guardians still involved in managing their dependent’s healthcare (categorized into the following groups: executive tasks, consultation, managerial tasks, and transferring knowledge)

Round 2

• There was little-to-no involvement from parents or guardians when the transition of getting off their insurance occurred

• New policyholders learned by making costly mistakes

• In order to prevent costly mistakes and feel confident in their abilities, individuals needed privilege in some way (e.g. healthy individual, good plan available, time & resources to research, etc.)

Personas were developed after data synthesis of over 45 user interviews.

It is important to note, that these personas do not represent the whole population’s experience, simply those we talked to within the project’s scope which may lean towards a more privileged group of individuals.

College Chloe

Chloe represented the typical young adult in the often pseudo-independent years of 18-25

• 18-25 year old dependent on someone else’s policy

• Underprepared for the transition to managing their healthcare independently

• Defers many healthcare-related tasks to their parent or guardian

Empty-Nester Nelson

Nelson represented the typical parent or guardian still involved in managing their child’s healthcare

• Has an 18-25 year old dependent on their policy

• Unsure how to prepare their child to manage their own healthcare

• They often stay involved to avoid financial mistakes and make sure their child is taking care of their health

Learning Luke

Luke represents the new policyholder who is still learning how to navigate the healthcare experience

• 6 months - 2 years experience managing their healthcare independently

• Learns through their experiences but often makes costly mistakes (financially, their health, etc.)

• Disillusioned and starts to distrust the healthcare system after multiple stressful experiences

Managing Maggie

Maggie represents the experienced policyholder who has strategies to successfully navigate the healthcare experience

• 2-5 years experience managing their healthcare independently

• Learns what coping strategies work for them

• Has resources that help them manage their healthcare like time, money, or experience

💡 UX tip: When developing How Might We’s (HMWs) it’s important to have them based on research insights and not to include ideas or solutions you think will work to solve pain points. Use this nnGroup article to help iterate on HMWs.

HMW make information accessible?

User personas involved: College Chloe & Empty-Nester Nelson

• Research insight: Information is scattered and often remains with parents or guardians (either physically or in their head)

• How might we help families communicate about shared data (e.g. family history) or data the parent had control over but is really the child’s (e.g. immunization records)

HMW make transfer experiential knowledge?

User personas involved: Empty-Nester Nelson

• Research insight: Parents don’t know how to transfer responsibility and knowledge to their dependents

• How might we help parents and guardians prepare their children to be an active, knowledgeable manager of their own health care?

HMW prevent costly mistakes?

User personas involved: Learning Luke

• Research insight: New policyholders learn how to manage their healthcare by making costly mistakes

• How might we help a young person "take the reins" of their own health management in a way that minimizes the risk of making a costly mistake?

HMW create agency?

User personas involved: Managing Maggie

• Research insight: Effective managers build agency by finding coping strategies and tools to advocate for themselves

• How might we help individuals learn to advocate for themselves or a loved one as part of a normal health care routine?

The Purpose

• Align the team to create a common understanding of the experience

• Brainstorm possible solutions based on how might we’s developed

The Workshop

• I facilitated two 90-minute design workshops for two UX teams: Consumer Health and Financials

• The teams discussed the research presented to them, visually ideated, and then shared their ideas with the group

The Outcome

• There were clear ideas that came up across multiple individuals and both teams

• Design principles were decided on from looking at the common themes among the solutions ideated

The storyboard was informed by research insights and workshop ideation

I took UI elements ideated in the UX design workshop and incorporated them into a storyboard. Some elements were designed using athena’s pre-existing design system and some were simply sketched.

The storyboard mixed real experiences from the research as well as imagined scenarios where the same solution could impact multiple problems.

For example, normalizing the database was a problem for having scattered vaccine records, but would also create the possibility for inclusive design using pronouns and preferred names.

Industry Takeaways

There are many regulations for personal health information (PHI) which can limit the capabilities of athena’s product design, but it’s not as stagnant as I assumed it would be.

To encourage innovation, it was really important to set up the design workshop for effective brainstorming. Eventually, ideas should and will be evaluated with the PHI limitations in mind, but this is often done prematurely, which may limit the innovation seen in the industry.

Personal Takeaways

Claire Kohler was a great manager and I was able to see how helpful it is to have a director who understands design as well as how to manage people effectively. Tips I will carry with me throughout my future work include:

• Fluctuate the amount of content on slides so the audience can have moments to digest information

• Sketched storyboard + hi-fi components make for a great way to express the context for certain features without requiring a complete build-out of an experience