What is Healthcare UX and How Does it Improve Healthcare Services

In the healthcare sector, design decisions can cost lives. No, we are not exaggerating! Research shows that medical errors are among the leading causes of deaths globally.

A Harvard study reports that 5.2 million medical errors occur in India annually.

A study conducted in the US shows that more than 250,000 people die in the US due to medical errors every year.

Common causes of medical errors include communication issues, misdiagnosis, faulty medical devices, and lack of clarity in information. The fingers more or less point to one direction — an inefficient healthcare UX.

In the healthcare sector, design solutions find applications in various ways. Electronic health records(EHR), medical diagnosis apps, medical prescription apps, telemedicine apps, and hospital management apps are some of the popular examples. And poor UX can equally harm all.

In 2014, a hospital in Texas mistakenly discharged an Ebola patient due to the hospital’s flawed EHR system. Critical information about the patient’s history was not automatically updated in the doctor’s system leading to a wrong diagnosis. There have also been occurrences of deaths happening because of the lack of usability of patient monitoring systems.

Incidents like these show the importance of healthcare UX in improving the usability and efficiency of design systems. Bad design should never be an excuse for poor healthcare services.

What is Healthcare UX

Healthcare UX can be defined as the experience users get when interacting with healthcare technologies and systems. The users can be professionals with or without clinical experience, patients, or even the general public. As the healthcare sector is broad and diverse, healthcare UX is also a vast field and can be applied from a simple monitoring tool to a complex hospital management system.

The three components of a great healthcare user experience are usability, enjoyability, and accessibility.

Usability is a measure of how easily a user can use a design to achieve their goals. Enjoyability refers to the joy or satisfaction that a user receives from using a product/service. Accessibility is about making the design accessible to all. It involves creating a design keeping in mind people with several abilities or disabilities such as colour blindness, eyesight troubles, etc.

These three elements are centred on the users and are key to making a healthcare system efficient and practical. And not to forget, UI and UX must be well balanced to achieve a functional and pleasing healthcare solution.

Why Healthcare UX is Important

At any stage during a healthcare cycle — be it ailment, diagnosis, or recovery — healthcare UX has a significant role to play. A proper healthcare UX design can contribute to creating better healthcare services and technologies. At present, we have a lack of a people-centred approach in healthcare systems design. The consequences of this range from bad health to loss of lives. Health is a basic human right, it is on each one of us to ensure that the right care reaches the needy.

In this digital era, hospital administration is heavily dependent on software. Digitization is applied in information collecting, processing, and storing. But it is not enough to merely introduce digitization. Rather a conscious effort to make the systems usable and applicable to all must be taken. Digitization shouldn’t create stress for the users. Instead, it should make healthcare hassle-free.

Most software designed for healthcare providers is outdated and unsystematic. They are often tightly packed with information that it takes many clicks for doctors to perform the desired action. There is a lack of progressive disclosure, information hierarchy, and consistency in even the best software healthcare practitioners use today.

In essence, there is a void that can only be filled with efficient healthcare UX design.

How can Better Healthcare UX Improve Patient Experience

Along with hospitals and healthcare practitioners, a significant group that benefits from better healthcare UX are patients. Today, with the availability of multiple healthcare mobile apps and websites, availing healthcare services is easy. But cumbersome designs and poor user experience have slowed down the rate of adoption of digital healthcare.

A better healthcare UX can tremendously help improve user experience and provide quality care. Let us see how.

Personalizing healthcare services

Each patient has different healthcare needs. Offering general healthcare services will no longer satisfy patient needs. To provide better care, the personalization of healthcare services is a necessity. And with the advancements in technology, it is very much possible. By finding ways to access each patient’s unique health conditions and integrating AI and ML to analyze patient data and create a customized experience for them, the quality of care rises exponentially.

Communicating information wisely

Imagine a healthcare service diagnosing a patient, and results are full of medical jargons. Will the patient be satisfied with the service? No, they will be confused and may even get stressed reading all the medical terms. Effective communication is among the topmost UX design principles. A good healthcare UX communicates information in a clear and simple manner. By using visuals to communicate and giving only relevant information, patients can be provided with a better experience.

Making healthcare accessible

For many, healthcare is a privilege. It could be people living in remote areas or having some disability — availing needed care might not always be possible. Mobile healthcare apps try to close this gap by enabling people to access care without any geographical or time constraints. However, to provide outstanding value, these apps should take care of factors like font type, size, button size, colour etc. A reminder that the patient might have certain disabilities could help designers to improve the healthcare user experience.

Safeguarding patient information

It is possible for patients to have some concerns regarding safety while using digital healthcare services. Since sensitive information is involved, privacy is an important consideration. Healthcare UI UX design company can play a major role in addressing this concern. Making it clear in their healthcare solutions the regulations they comply with (such as HIPAA, PIPEDA, or GDPR) can alleviate patients’ concerns regarding the safety of information.

Top 7 UX Trends in Healthcare

The Healthcare sector has always embraced innovative technologies. The impact of technology on the development of healthcare is noteworthy. Technology has helped the healthcare industry solve challenges and improve patient care. In this section, we will discuss the top seven UX trends in the healthcare industry.

1.Healthcare Chatbots

Healthcare chatbots are popular as they give immediate response to any query. A well-programmed chatbot will make a patient feel like they had a discussion with a human doctor instead of a machine.

Healthcare chatbots find application in booking appointments, providing medication reminders, doing healthcare checkup, and collecting feedback. They save patients time while delivering quality and reliable services. They also reduce the workload of doctors and other healthcare staff.

In future, the healthcare chatbots are expected to deliver more advanced services such as diagnosing conditions, offering personalized instructions according to patient data, and managing chronic illnesses. The challenge for healthcare UX designers is to make the interaction with chatbots as human as possible by showing care and providing precise responses.

2. Telemedicine

Telemedicine rose to popularity with the onset of Covid-19. It enabled people to access healthcare without having to actually visit a doctor. Through video consultations, healthcare apps, and remote monitoring tools, telemedicine brought healthcare to home. It also empowered people to get expert doctor advice irrespective of geographical or time restrictions.

Telemedicine offers patients and doctors an experience just like a regular doctor visit without the headache of waiting, travelling, or fear of catching germs. The challenge for healthcare UX designers is to create an experience that resembles a real doctor visit in every aspect. This requires implementing various UX research methods to find out what defines the best care for each party involved.

3. Wearable Tech

The wearable tech market is a promising one. A Statista report states that by 2022, the number of wearable devices worldwide will grow over 1.1 billion. Wearables are no longer limited to the functionalities of smartwatches and fitness trackers, like counting steps or monitoring sleep. It has become more advanced, incorporating new features and thus making them a valuable tool in healthcare.

Wearables can now measure vital body signs like heart rate and blood pressure, measure body mass index and detect symptoms of sickness. A report by Business Insider says that when a patient uses wearable technology, it saves doctors 15 hours per week. And the good news is more than 80% of consumers agree to use wearable tech.

From the healthcare UX perspective, wearable tech should focus on simplicity, usability, and data handling. Complex interactions and too much information can cause confusion. It is important to prioritize information and present it in an easy to understand way. Along with numbers, it can implement simple data visualization elements to convey useful insights

4. Voice User Interfaces

Voice user interfaces are becoming a notable UI UX design trend that improves ease of use and accessibility. With the popularity of Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, using voice assistants for performing various tasks are now more common. In the healthcare sector, its value is immeasurable as it plays a big role in creating an inclusive and accessible healthcare solution.

Whether the patients have disabilities like visual impairments or movement impairments, if they have difficulty typing and prefer talking, or if they want to start a task between some activity, the voice user interface lets them achieve all this.

5. Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR and VR)

A trend that benefits doctors and patients alike, AR and VR is here to rewrite several traditional medical practices. It is finding applications in training doctors to perform complex procedures, performing detailed analysis of body scans, creating an accurate diagnosis, and distracting patients from painful treatment procedures.

Compared to traditional training methods, VR training is found to increase participants’ surgical performance by 230%. Its importance as a valuable educational tool as well as thoughtful patient care approach is making it an integral part of the evolving healthcare landscape.

6. Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Diagnosis reports, scans, prescriptions — the healthcare sector relies heavily on papers. Understanding the disadvantages of paper documentation, healthcare services are moving to the digitization of medical records. EHRs reduce paperwork, improves accessibility, introduces portability, and helps you have information on fingertips.

For patients, it provides the advantage that their medical history is stored safely and securely and can be transferred to doctors whenever desired. For doctors, it improves the ease of scanning information and provides instant accessibility. While implementing EHRs, healthcare UX designers should prioritize user testing and quality assurance in the UI UX design process as ineffective or inefficient design can have disastrous results.

7. Consumer-Focused Design

In every industry, consumers are gaining more and more control. They like to be in charge and have access to all information. This trend is finding a way into the healthcare industry as well.

Patients are no longer mere spectators. They are actively involved in every step of their healthcare journey. They need knowledge about their medical conditions, are open to discussing the possibilities of treatments, expect access to their treatment records and overall desire to be more involved.

There are several challenges to implementing this approach. However, it can make patients more aware of their well being and make healthcare experiences more human.

The Future of Healthcare UX

Healthcare is a service. As technological advancements are integrated into the healthcare industry, it is important to not lose focus on people. There lies the underlying need for healthcare UX. The road to digital healthcare is built, and the healthcare user experience makes the journey smooth. There is immense growth in sight for the healthcare sector in the future. The UX trends that we discussed, like chatbots, AR and VR, wearables, VUI, etc., will play a significant role in making healthcare more accessible and easy. These trends are expected to grow in demand and shape the future of the healthcare industry.

As a leading UI UX design agency, we at Aufait UX, understand UX design and its importance. We have worked with different clients across various verticals and are proud of our achievements. We have experience in designing many healthcare UX projects and know what it takes to create a delightful healthcare UX solution. Do you have a project you want to discuss with us? We would love to hear from you. Get in touch with us today and let’s talk!