Patient Lab Testing Experience
Enabling patients to schedule appointments, pay invoices, and view the results of lab work on their computer or phone.
Highlights
Partnered with client’s internal design & product team to reimagine the end-to-end patient experience
Expanded an existing design system to support a new visual look and feel
Led UX, IA, and visual design while directing another designer
Designed 200+ screens in 6 months delivering a robust design prototype
The Objective
Redesign the digital patient experience with a special focus on increasing the number of appointments booked (vs. walk-ins), reducing the number of contact center calls, and growing the number of patients with digital accounts.
A Streamlined Patient Experience
Getting lab tests like a lipid panel or glucose test aren’t often tasks that people get excited about. Having these tests done are a critical step in pursuing better health however. In late 2019 I worked with a major laboratory network to make the process of scheduling, completing, and paying for lab tests easier for patients.
People in need of lab work would be able to select a date, time, and lab location for their test via the public website or mobile app. Once they had completed their tests, they could view results within a secure digital patient account and pay any outstanding invoices. This project involved close collaboration with several stakeholder groups (lab operations, customer support, billing, and the clinical team) and resulted in a reimagined patient experience that will guide the company’s roadmap for the upcoming year and more.
Key Areas of Design & Testing
Appointment Scheduling
Not every lab location offered all test types, and evidence suggested that people wanted to compare times across multiple locations when scheduling an appointment. The new design enabled patients to see all available times across multiple locations nearby, and filter by specific parameters to find the most convenient appointment.
When shown next to competitive scheduling screens, 88% of people preferred the new design for selecting an appointment date and time.
Account Creation
Patients with digital accounts could take advantage of several services that minimized the effort required on their part, but the barrier to registration was time-intensive because of the necessary data privacy concerns. To address this we worked together to break the registration process into two parts:
A basic account registration required just a few pieces of contact info and gave patients many of the digital tools they’ve come to expect in our digital age.
A verified account offered full access to all patient portal functionality including the ability to view & pay invoices with PII info, view & share results, view invoice history, manage linked patient accounts, and more upon completion of identity verification.
Understanding Test Results
Displaying medical test results is both a high value patient view and one with significant regulation based on clinical accuracy and varying state laws. To help explore possibilities for this portion of the experience my team and I prototyped several early ideas for viewing results and giving patients greater ability to flag, add notes, and access educational materials related to their test results. These early design explorations will help various stakeholders visualize potential enhancements to the experience and further test possibilities.
Viewing & Paying Invoices
Partnering with the client’s research team, we learned along the way that if patients had enough money to pay one of three invoices completely and make a small payment on another:
74% would pay the oldest invoice first
10% would pay the invoice with the smallest amount
16% would pay a portion of all 3 invoices
With this context I designed an invoices landing page and payment workflow that enabled patients to pay one, all, or some portion of their outstanding invoices using a consistent interaction pattern.
The design work completed as part of this project was driven by a clear product strategy, informed by user research along the way, and delivered with build specifications and documentation for the client’s internal engineering team.
The new design will help to optimize the current patient experience and provide a foundation upon which the client can add more proactive health services.