Empowering heart failure patients and their providers
Abbott approached Cognizant to create a new experience for their CardioMEMS HF system, an implanted device that allows physicians to remotely monitor a patient’s heart and detect early signs of worsening heart failure before physical symptoms occur.
The engagement included a reimagined desktop-based provider portal as well as a new patient-facing mobile app with the goal of empowering patients with heart failure to take control of their health and connect with their health care providers.
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The problem
I led a team of five designers to create two fully functional clickable Figma prototypes in just nine weeks.
My role
I was creative director and client liaison for our team, working with stakeholders to uncover their vision while balancing the needs of their users.
The method
I kicked off the project with a Google Design Sprint with the full 30-person team, set a feasible delivery schedule, facilitated weekly check-ins, and conducted in-person usability testing with heart failure patients and providers.
The output
My team delivered two Figma prototypes, developer-ready Figma files, and detailed architecture diagrams on time and within budget.
Kicking off the engagement with a full-team Google Design Sprint workshop
The problem
Health care providers needed a quick way to identify patients who require immediate attention. We asked: How might we employ machine learning and automation to reduce clinicians’ time on admin work?
Patients experiencing with heart implants had no way to access the data from their device, leading to confusion and mistrust in their health care providers and repeated visits to the emergency room. We asked: How might we empower heart failure patients to make better decisions by unlocking their biometric data?
The details
Team makeup
I led a team of 5 product designers and 2 design researchers to conduct all stages of the design process, from ideation to research to high-fidelity mockups to user testing.
Timeline
Cognizant was engaged for 9 weeks from kickoff to handoff.
The short timeline meant I needed to be in constant communication with both the internal team as well as with the clients. Because the majority of the team was not located in the same office, we made ample use of online collaboration and documentation tools like Figma, Miro, and Confluence.
Patient app architecture diagram
Provider app architecture diagram
Screenshot from patient app
Screenshot from provider portal
The process
Overview
In addition to a tight timeline, this project also involved high-touch client collaboration with a range of senior-level stakeholders within Abbott. My primary focus was building trust with the client and clearly communicating our product vision while empowering my team to do their best work.
This involved delegating daily tasks, setting reasonable deadlines and ensuring that each designer could work to their strengths.
In-depth
Started with a 3-day kickoff workshop with the entire 30-person team from across Abbott and Cognizant. I led sessions to create an end-to-end user journey for both proposed prototypes.
Proposed a phased timeline approach to maximize design and research resources.
Divided the design team into logical groups according to seniority and strengths and established a working communication cadence. As the project continued I set deadlines for touchpoints and ensured that the team had the resources and information they needed to be successful.
Set up a weekly communication cadence with internal and external SMEs.
Created personas, user journey maps, and architecture diagrams for both prototypes and used these tools to communicate design intent to clients and our internal team.
Acted as the point person for all design-based communication between Cognizant and Abbott.
Supervised the creation of two clickable Figma prototypes.
Conducted user interviews facilitating the use of the clickable prototypes via four home visits with current heart implant patients and a lab with clinicians.
Ensured that Figma files were ready for developer handoff.
The design process
The results
We delivered two fully formed clickable Figma prototypes as well as high-level architecture diagrams for both applications and developer-ready Figma files for the team who would be writing the code.
The project was completed in Fall 2022 with the potential of additional development work in the future.