Medofi is a mobile application committed to simplifying and streamlining communication within hospital networks by categorizing mass communication into 3 categories: Messages, To-Do, Files. Currently, Medofi is only offered at Jefferson Hospital in New Jersey, however, of 500 licenses purchased, only about 45 are being used.

My team and I needed to find out why users were not using this application and redesign it to make it essential to the users.

COMPETITIVE MATRIX

The first thing we did was build a competitive matrix to see where Medofi falls within the market. We organized Medofi and their competitors based on whether they targeted their product toward a specific market or for the general public. We also compared function of the products on whether they were solely for communication for had had more features to increase the users’ productivity.

OUR FINDINGS

• MeDoFi focuses on increasing productivity, efficient communication and is HIPAA compliant.

• Other apps that focus on these three areas, but none of them are hospital specific- and thus do not include the specific requirements needed to function within a hospital; HIPAA compliancy.

• The apps we found that are hospital specific, focus only on communication and texting and not productivity.

INTERVIEWS

We already knew that Medofi was being used at Jefferson Hospital but not by many. We interviewed 3 current MeDoFi users and 3 potential users at other hospitals in New York. We also spoke with people in a variety of departments to make changes that would be useful to employees throughout the hospital.

OUR FINDINGS

• MeDoFi allows current users to feel connected to the rest of the hospital staff while not physically working together.

• Current users also expressed that they found the messaging system to be repetitive of their email inbox.

• HIPAA compliant instant messaging and a secure filing system for patient records are essential within hospital networks.

• Other applications do not adopt an intuitive user-centered approach.

• Medical technology in general tends to be outdated and hard to use.

AFFINITY MAP

After user interviews we used a data synthesis method called “Affinity Mapping” to identify emerging patterns and trends across interviewees. These patterns led us to specific insights that we needed to direct our focus on while redesigning the Medofi app.

INSIGHTS

• Medical professionals want to spend their time with patients and not on the computer all day.

• Medical professionals often need patient information as soon as possible.

• All hospital staff need a system for mass communication.

• Staff members are physically disconnected from other departments but need to coordinate patient care across departments.

• Hospital staff need HIPAA secure messaging.

• Hospital staff want medical technology to be accessible, intuitive, and up-to-date.

• Hospital staff need immediate knowledge of hospital-wide alerts

To assess the usability and utility of the current Medofi app, we performed four usability tests on medical professionals at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The tasks outlined below are based on the current functionality of Medofi and the goals of the Medofi user personas, Patrice and Milton.

OUR FINDINGS

• Users like the use of color to triage messages, but are overwhelmed by the competing color choices.

• Users felt a hospital directory was a missing feature.

• Users wanted a way to private message other users.

• Users want to be able to delete their comments.

• Users thought the weather survey was out of place on the homepage.

• Users like how customizable MeDoFi is.

FEATURE PRIORITIZATION & MOSCOW MATRIX

Overloading the app would cause too much confusion and frustration for the user, making the app unusable. We narrowed down the features that came out of our competitive and comparative features analysis into what we Must Have, Should Have Could have and Won’t Have. The features that would be integrated into the new Medofi app were not only essential to the user, but also within industry standards and HIPAA compliant.

TASK FLOW

CURRENT MEDOFI APP VS PROPOSED REDESIGN

• Proposed redesign requires less scrolling

• User can find messages quickly and easily, resulting in less frustration

• Reducing steps to view message details from 4 steps to 2 leads to a faster user work flow.

• Clearer path to messages lets the user quickly acquire the important information they need and get back to work, which letting administration know their message has been read.

• Simpler, quicker and direct paths to accomplishing tasks results in more efficient communication with less aggravation.

USER FLOW

PROPOSED REDeSIGN

Insights from our interviews and user testing told us that users wanted 2 specific things: one to one messaging and easier, HIPAA compliant file sharing.

• User testing showed us 3 paths that users wanted to take to share files with each other.

• Files can be sent through a chat, from the patient’s list of files, or through the directory

• Our user tests showed us that younger hospital employees, mostly in their 30s or younger, always attached a file within a chat conversation.

• Older users usually wanted to find the file first.

• Medical Staffs’ mental models were always “Patient First” so we created a filing system in Medofi where the user can find their list of patients, then find that patient’s file.

• Tests also showed that some staff members wanted to find the receiver of the file first.

• In every instance, the sender always sees who the patient is, what the file name is, and who they are sending too.

• Every path taken is secure and HIPAA complaint, so there is no way to “copy and paste” or to send to someone outside of Medofi. Files can only be held within the Medofi app and the hospital database.

Usability Testing

We brought our hi-fidelity prototype to 3 different hospitals in NYC. We asked hospital employees from a variety of departments to run through the same 3 tasks that were tested on the original app as well as tasks to test out our new features. We were delighted to see times on tasks decrease significantly while watching users complete these tasks directly and with ease.

USER JOURNEY MAP

We created a user journey map to demonstrate how MeDoFi would be used in users’ everyday lives. This helped us understand how to improve users’ work flow by increasing efficiency and collaboration abilities.

INSIGHTS

Dr. Fogel’s mood improves as he continues to utilize MeDoFi during his shift because it enables him to spend more face-time with his patients and less time at a desk or doing administrative tasks.

INVISION PROTOYPE

NEXT STEPS

• Moving forward, we would love to add on more features that users told us were important to them, such as group messaging/chat.

• We would also like to redesign the desktop administration dashboard to be more intuitive and be correctly used my the Administrators.

• Finally, we look forward to handing off our designs to the developers.

  IN CONCLUSION

  We know and trust that the new Medofi App will prove to be an essential tool for all hospital employees.

  Our research and redesign will undoubtedly increase our client’s sales and make communication within hospitals more efficient and increase employee productivity.