GOOGLE HEALTHCHECK
System Design
PROJECT CONTEXT
As the healthcare industry grows and evolves, so do hospital readmission rates. Hospital readmissions can be defined as a patient admission to a hospital within 30 days after being discharged from an earlier hospital stay, this measure is important because it is a major indicator for the quality of care patients receive in hospitals. It is said that 15% of patients are readmitted to hospitals after 30 days, 33% after 90 days, and that overall, $17 billion is annually spent on hospital readmissions.
In this IT competition hosted by Google at the University of Texas at Dallas, my team and I were challenged to create a solution that minimizes hospital readmissions and the cost associated with it. This is where our application HealthCheck comes in!
Scope
4 weeks
Role
Systems Analyst
Tags
UX Research
User Functionality
System Design
App Design
Our Journey
Research
In order to gain a better understanding of this issue as well as potential users our product, my team and I began our research with two focuses: Penalties/Causes of hospital readmissions and the types of patients are affected by readmissions.
Based on our research as well as context given by Google themselves, we found that oftentimes, medicare-aged patients (65+) are readmitted into the hospital due to these penalties.
Synthesis
As a way of empathizing with our users, we began considering possible types of systems and devices that Google typically creates for health and fitness/well-being. We were also given two goals to focus on and were introduced to Google's 10X thinking.
Ideation
Design Questions
When considering our user functionality and demographic, is it more efficient to create a web application or a mobile application?
How can we make our device beneficial for both doctors and patients?
When understanding constraints, what specific features would we like to include in our application?
Key Criteria
After reviewing our research as well as our main demographic–medicare-aged patients (65+)–we decided that a simple mobile application aimed not to be technically savvy but rather a convenient facilitator in communication between the patient and doctor would be best.
User Experience: Benefits
- Valuable tool that provides healthcare workers with a platform to keep up-to-date on their patients’ health post-op
- Can be used for all ages due to its easy to access platform designed to be friendly for 65+ patients
- Credible advice and records given by the doctors and nurses of the patient
- Efficient method of communication through quick yes/no surveys and interactive buttons that provide shortcuts to make calls and send messages regarding concerns
System Design
Use Cases/Sequence diagrams
To showcase the user pathway for HealthCheck, we created use case and sequence diagrams from both the doctor and patient perspectives.
Designs led by our team's Systems Analyst (me)
Use Cases
Sequence Diagrams
Application Design
Designs led by our team's Application Engineer
Homepage
This entails reminders for the patient (medication to take, exercises to complete, etc.), messages from their doctor, and HealthTracker Rates monitored by their doctor. The patient also has an option to contact their doctor and request assistance immediately. The patient may also receive HealthPoints that can be redeemed from prizes such as a FitBit!
Post-Op Advice
This feature allows for patients to look into and request specialized advice about symptoms they are experiencing. These questions can guide the patient when evaluating their condition.
Daily HealthCheck
This feature requires that the patient fill out a two-minute survey every day to assess their health and potential symptoms they are experiencing. This encourages ongoing monitoring after hospital discharge.
Healthcare Provider Dashboard
This dashboard provides the patient and the doctor a summary of their activity each day as well as their overall health.
Google Integration
In order to work with Google's services, HealthCheck would leverage the Google Cloud environment to develop and deploy the unique features of the application. Our team would utilize Google App Engines to scale and manage the traffic for the application. Focused on using two of Google Cloud Platform's services–Cloud Storage and Cloud Spanner–preprocessed and processed data would be stored using Cloud Storage and querying will be conducted in Cloud Spanner.
Google’s Cloud Healthcare API and HealthAPIx would be utilized to facilitate the communication between healthcare providers and the application. Additionally, the HealthAPIx would help the healthcare providers and patients create an actionable plan to address post-operative symptom management.
Below outlines our cloud architecture for how this integration would be mapped out.
Cloud Architecture
Design led by our team's Cloud Specialist
Future Plans
If HealthCheck were to be successfully created, we developed a four-year timeline that displays its future plans.
Reflection
Judged by Google Cloud Customer Engineers and Specialists, my team and I received first place on our project. This 4-week competition served as great opportunity to learn more about Google's 10X design thinking, as I was able to apply this ideology throughout the project.
Competing against 19 undergraduate and graduate teams, we faced creative challenges as we attempted to align our application ideas to Google's "customer/user first" expectations and branding.
Although I did not lead the UI design of our application, focusing more on the system design and user functionality allowed me to take a step back and truly understand the difference between the concepts of User Experience/Research and User Interface. Following Google's "customer/user first" principles helped me understand the need for effective and efficient user experience that should be paired with every pretty user interface!