Create healthcare technology that meets the demands of patients.
Fremont, CA: Telehealth technology has finally entered the mainstream as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Healthcare providers in the United States announced a much-needed expansion of telehealth services to offer a safe and secure portal to assist patients. Patient-centric healthcare tools include medical professionals at every stage of the process to give accurate diagnosis and treatment and wellness initiatives to help people live healthier lives.
Telehealth is a broad term that refers to various activities that help patients and the general public stay healthy, including prevention, promotion, diagnosis, self-care, and treatment. Thus, patient-centered telehealth technology can lower overall healthcare costs and burdens while freeing limited resources to focus on emergencies and chronic diseases requiring specialist treatment.
DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR PATIENT-CENTRIC TELEHEALTH TOOLS
START WITH THE RIGHT RESEARCH
User research is essential in many areas of technology, but it is necessary for healthcare and, in particular, telehealth technology. For example, a patient with arthritis who struggles to hold the device in her hand for long periods and thus requires shorter consultations or someone with impaired hearing who requires captioning for telecalls will benefit from user research.
ESTABLISH SAFETY AND SECURITY
People are worried about disclosing personal medical information on the internet. Most humans are more comfortable telling personal health information during face-to-face contact but hesitant to do so via gadgets. It was especially true among the elderly.
Furthermore, when a telehealth service stresses the human element, it is merely a secure conduit for patients to connect with their doctor or a board-certified doctor to emphasize the human factor — consumers are more likely to trust it. Therefore, designing in such a way that the patients get reminded of this reality.
RELY ON THE COMFORT OF FAMILIARITY
There's almost no room for experimentation (or healthcare applications in general) when it comes to creating layouts and interfaces for telehealth applications. The added stress of understanding how to use a telemedicine program is unnecessary. As a result, designers must identify where they are in their journey whenever a user contacts a telehealth solution.
DESIGN FOR ACCESSIBILITY
It's critical to create a user-friendly telehealth solution that considers the patient's technological and physical restrictions. Patent-centered design, in this situation, adheres to the same ideas as user-centric design in that it maintains the focus on the user, keeps things simple, and, based on user research.
