Health Care Mobile App
Project Overview​
Overview
As a Senior UX Designer I was part of a team working on a platform used by home care workers and care coordinators to manage client care, schedule home visits, track medications, and handle staff and supply logistics. Our goal was to streamline operations, improve care outcomes, and reduce administrative burden for frontline caregivers. Part of the project was also to bring the desktop application into the Cloud for a more modern approach.
The Problem
Home care workers were juggling multiple disconnected tools, manual processes, and inconsistent communication with coordinators. This led to scheduling conflicts, medication tracking errors, and inefficient workflows - impacting both care quality and employee satisfaction.
Approach
We approached this as a service design challenge, exploring the full journey from care planning to in-home visits and reporting.
Key activities:
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Conducted user research with care workers, coordinators, and clinical staff.
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Heuristic evaluation of the existing product.
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Mapped the end-to-end service journey, identifying major friction points.
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Created interactive prototypes to test and validate new workflows.
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Developed front-end components using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for faster iteration and developer alignment.
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The Research
Problem Statement
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How might we solve the issues faced by home care workers with our platform?
Target Persona
Abby Smith is a Personal Support Worker who’s tasks usually involve providing personal care such as bathing, hygiene, and helping clients with dressing, grooming, and eating.
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Abby gets her patient information while in the office, prints off the paperwork and goes out to her home visits. Each visit includes a checklist of tasks to complete, list of medications and medical supplies that may or may not need to be ordered.
Research Methods
We interviewed 4 coordinators and 5 Personal Support Workers to find out what tasks they were required to do in order to set up home care visits and perform them. We learned of their pain points in the current process and identified a few features which could make things easier for them to do their jobs while increasing their accuracy.
Key Insights
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PSWs are worried the new system will be difficult to use.
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Coordinators are not able to send updates to PSWs out on calls.
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PSWs are writing notes on paper that sometimes get lost.
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Changes to care routine are not always updated at the end of the visit.
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Staff often lacked real-time access to updated care plans, especially in the field.
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Coordinators had difficulty tracking visit completion and care notes across clients.
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Medication and supply tracking was inconsistent, leading to gaps in care.
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​Brainstorming
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We analyzed the data from research findings into a presentation to the stakeholders. It was clear that in addition to the Cloud Platform, we also needed to develop a native app for home care workers in the field.
We set up several brainstorming workshops with the team to discuss the requirements for the app and the user research, and work through some ambiguity.
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Affinity Mapping
To better understand the challenges faced by home care workers, I facilitated a collaborative workshop using postits and a whiteboard to synthesize our research findings. We used affinity mapping to organize raw feedback - capturing pain points, behaviours, and user quotes on sticky notes and clustering them into themes. This process helped the team uncover recurring issues, such as difficulty tracking daily tasks or managing client preferences, which shaped our feature prioritization and ensured we were solving the most critical user needs.
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Participants were: Design, Product, QA and Engineering.
The Design
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User Flows
(note that team comments have been removed)
We then created user flows in Adobe XD to map out the steps a healthcare professional would take to complete a patient data entry task. This helped us visualize the logical sequence of actions, ensuring the process was intuitive, efficient, and aligned with clinical workflows. During review, our engineering partners shared valuable insights about how medical data is structured and processed, which led us to refine the flow to better support backend requirements while maintaining a smooth user experience.
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Participants were: design, product, engineering, subject matter experts.​​
Based on feedback from the stakeholders, product and development teams, we created a low fidelity wireframe of the solution using Balsamiq, conducted usability testing sessions with end users. Looking for patterns in their feedback, we then quickly refined the solution and arrived at a high fidelity design using Adobe XD.
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This solution was simple, featured a list of tasks and patient data that could be updated in the office by coordinators and the information would automatically push out to the mobile app. PSWs can order medical supplies via the app right at a patient’s house and if there is no Wifi, the data stores until a sync can be performed.​​
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Solutions:
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A unified dashboard for care coordinators to schedule visits, track staff, and manage client needs.
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A mobile-friendly interface for care workers to view plans, check off tasks, and log updates during visits.
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Built-in tools to order supplies and track medication delivery, improving compliance and reducing errors.
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Front-end components designed and coded to ensure seamless handoff and real-world performance.
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Validation
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The solution was tested in 5 clinical environments, with coordinators and PSWs in the field. Feedback from this was used to further refine the solution and plan for future feature releases.
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Outcome & Impact
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Improved scheduling accuracy and staff coordination.
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Reduced manual errors in care delivery and documentation.
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Boosted caregiver confidence and ease-of-use with a streamlined mobile experience.
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Increased overall client satisfaction and regulatory compliance.
Our mobile app was implemented to support home care workers in the field, enabling them to access schedules, update care details, and store information offline. This solution significantly streamlined communication between field staff and office teams.
As a result, we achieved an 80% improvement in real-time communication and a 60% boost in client satisfaction, greatly enhancing caregiver efficiency and the overall quality of care provided.
Reflections
This project reinforced the importance of designing holistically for complex service ecosystems, especially in healthcare where fragmented tools and communication gaps directly impact care quality. By mapping the full journey and co-creating solutions with frontline users, we identified critical needs like real-time mobile access and simplified coordination. Contributing both design and front-end code allowed for tighter collaboration and more seamless implementation. Ultimately, the work improved care delivery, reduced errors, and empowered staff - demonstrating the power of thoughtful, user-centered design in high-stakes environments.