HealthTouch
HealthTouch is an innovative web and mobile app, developed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of primary care services for patients.
IE Digital crafted a user friendly mobile health app, featuring Trackers for patients to record a range of health measures and share them with their GP, who can monitor progress remotely via a web app.
Concerns about inefficient patient management in primary care had inspired the HealthTouch team to look for a solution.
They had an idea for a bespoke app that would move patients with chronic conditions towards supervised self-management, allowing clinicians to monitor them remotely. The goal was to empower those patients to take charge of their own health and improve clinical outcomes. The app would facilitate communications with healthcare professionals, reduce the number of unnecessary face-to-face consultations and improve the quality of necessary ones.
The founders of HealthTouch also told us that the end product should be “slick and unique, with a real a wow-factor.” They requested a “beauty and simplicity in the way users interact with the app.”
The HealthTouch team brought in IE Digital to co-create an ambitious brief for designing, building and testing the app.
We held co-creation workshops and carried out user research before embarking on a structured cycle of prototype development, user testing, feedback and back to development.
Our ultimate aim was to pilot the system successfully in a real-word environment. The pilot would allow us to gather data and demonstrate the value of the app with quantifiable and tangible benefits.
The requirement for simplicity and usability informed IE Digital’s entire design process.
We began by gathering the basic visual and tone of voice building blocks, including creation of a new logo, providing a visual steer for the work to follow.
The HealthTouch team had already done some foundational work including wireframes. IE Digital carried out more detailed technical and usability planning, including flow diagrams to show the key interactions for the app and website.
Alpha phase
We then moved into the rapid prototyping phase, and developed our first Alpha. This was a “minimum viable product”, with only the essential system processes to allow patients to share their recorded data with GPs. This ‘no whistles’ version of the platform gave us something tangible to share with GPs from our pilot practice to get their feedback and input at an early stage.
This was followed by a development sprint to incorporate feedback and add the missing functionality, bringing the apps up to ‘pre-pilot’ stage. We ran a pre-pilot workshop with a small group of health professionals and ‘patients’, before an accelerated Alpha pilot over two weeks, with patients taking daily measurements. This included a test of the patient onboarding process and notifications systems, as well as core tracking and monitoring functionality.
Beta pilot
Feedback from the Alpha pilot was incorporated before we headed into a 12-week Beta pilot exercise. This involved four health professionals and around 100 patients, and we provided a simple system to capture their feedback. We gathered more qualitative feedback from Beta patients and professionals.
The final mobile app is available on both Android and iOS devices. It allows patients to share their profile and measurements with their ‘Care Network' – their surgery, GP or other clinicians – who can then monitor patients remotely via the desktop web interface and request patients to attend a consultation as needed.
The patient app is user friendly, featuring Trackers for a range of health measures. They can also record the medication they are taking and when they have taken it.
The app sends customisable push notifications to remind patients when they need to take medication and record measurements.
The full documented app was handed over to the HealthTouch team, to continue the process of testing in clinics and hospitals, and offer the product for live implementation.