Healthcare Platform
How do you build trust when the stakes are health?
- Product Designer
- 2023
The Problem
Patients were visiting the clinic or calling for info they could look up online. But the clinic's home-grown portal was confusing, slow, and didn't feel *safe*. Regulatory compliance was complex; the UX paid for it in complexity.
Context
Healthcare nonprofit, mission-driven. Timeline: 12 months. Team: 2 frontend engineers, 1 compliance officer, clinical advisor, PM, me. Constraint: HIPAA compliance at every step. Success = reduce in-person visits by 20% and improve NPS by 30 points.
Key Learning
Hospital stakeholders feared a 'too simple' design would hide complexity. But patients feared a complex design would hide their data. The real insight: transparency = trust. Show your process, explain steps, let people understand what's happening.
What We Did
Built with radical clarity. Every screen explained *why* you're seeing it and what happens next. Added a 'consent center'—show patients exactly what data we have, who can see it, and why. Appointment flow was clear: book, prep (reminder + info to bring), attend, follow-up. Design system was hospital-safe (conservative, proven patterns, not flashy).
Outcome
No-show rates dropped from 22% to 14%. Patient calls to the clinic dropped 28%. NPS went from 62 to 89. Voluntary data sharing (for research) jumped from 8% to 34% once patients trusted they understood what they were sharing.
What's Next
We should have added proactive engagement (reminders earlier, pre-visit question gathering). Also, we were limited to web; a mobile app could have served the tech-savvy segment much better. Finally, we didn't iterate enough on the post-visit follow-up—missed engagement window.