Health Portal

TL;DR

Here are the high-level outcomes of my work on the Enterprise Health Portal (EHP):

  • Led design of EHP, replacing a complex Excel-based system used during health emergencies
  • Created role-based dashboards and navigation to deliver relevant real-time information for managers and employees globally
  • Conducted rapid prototyping, collaborative design sessions, and usability testing with 85% task success rate
  • Designed interactive features like “Plans in Action” for task assignment, status tracking, and streamlined crisis management
  • Successfully launched with strong client adoption and potential for future integration with broader health systems

For more details and the nitty-gritty process, read on…

Background

When a public health threat looms, organizations can struggle to fully understand the implications of the threat on their business and people. The Enterprise Health Portal was designed for companies to access the latest medical content and pandemic incident plans to effectively respond to health threats to their employees.

The platform hosts the latest information about the disease outbreak, as well as a library of incident management procedures, posters and communication documents for employees in an affected area to use. The tool was developed to raise an organization’s preparedness when responding to emerging health threats and fulfill their duty of care obligations.

A new dashboard provides managers a global view of their locations in relation to global health threats. The dashboard also provides them customizable, simplified management checklists and consistent action plans to use quickly across their global sites.

Problem

Before the Enterprise Health Portal (EHP) was created, the client provided its customers with a convoluted matrix of Excel charts with technical medical references and 500 supporting documents. The product frequently caused user confusion when it was needed most – during emergencies.

Solution

I led the design for the EHP – a completely new enterprise application that allowed users to:

  • Set user permissions and different views of information
  • Access all pertinent medical resources based on the current threat
  • Receive real-time updates of office status and resource allocation
  • Monitor all employees’ health at a company’s offices – either on-site or remotely
  • Have constant communication with remote employees and corporate headquarters
  • Set standards for version control of documents

Process

Step 1: Evaluate current process to reference data and resources

I worked with the client to gather usage statistics about how the product was being used. The information provided showed that customers were confused and quickly overwhelmed using the existing product. As a result, many valuable product features were being overlooked.

Step 2: Create new global navigation and user roles

One of the crucial decision points in the design process was refining how different users saw information. For example, a junior-level employee needed certain information to support the team, but the director at corporate headquarters may need some, if not all, of the same views and more. Determining the best structure to show this information to each user type proved to be challenging. In this picture, I am working with my Project Manager to understand the constraints of the technology and teaching her the flow to access default and custom templates.

Step 3: Brainstorming and rapid prototyping

After various sketching and whiteboard sessions, I started building clickable wireframes in Axure 7. I was lucky to have a client who was eager to see the product launch at its potential, so we often held design sessions over GoToMeeting, rapidly iterating designs and discussing key user flows, features, constraints and cost-benefit trade-offs during these meetings. Below are some early prototypes of different dashboard functionalities.

The dashboard, interactive map, and other features allow the user to quickly solve the issue their company faces. See Prototype
Above is a earlier version of the Dashboard in high fidelity form. Notice the map coloration? Later the map colors were changed to give more contrast and greater differentiation both between each country and where diseases were spreading.
A key screen users engage with is the “Plans in Action” section of the application. Here, high-level users can assign other staff to tasks, set the status of tasks, change the severity of the plan to be used that day, view/edit documents pertaining to tasks, and close a plan at any time.
Above is a high fidelity version of the “Plans in Action” screen. Notice task: “Has staff received education material and training?”? The status is in an active state, showing the user the status options. This feature is set for .3 second ease in/out on click interaction. The overlay slide out (over owner) saved valuable space and was considerably faster than a text overlay or lightbox configuration.

Step 4: Iteration and further design

Feedback: Throughout the process, I received frequent feedback from the client’s project manager and even our sales team as we worked to validate the proposed design as being an effective solution. This strategy proved to be effective at gaining buy-in from stakeholders – in my company and the client’s.

Visual design: I worked closely with the Visual Designer to refine the navigation and color palette. This was a fun challenge as one of the product requirements was to allow the customer to style the application to their own brand’s colors. Thus, the default palette had to be generic enough to work with many different customers.

Interaction Specification for Development: I created a manual of interaction design specifications that were deliverables for engineering, including all micro-interactions within the application to help ensure accuracy of the design and speed up development time.

User testing: I conducted user testing with the leaders who oversee their company’s offices and staff vulnerabilities around the globe. The test results were positive with an 85% success rate on the primary tasks. Development was pleased with the recommended changes — only a few different Call To Action placements were required.

End result

The test participants found the EHP to be well organized, very useful and easy to use. The client’s launch customers have had positive response to the product and there is potential for the dashboard map to be used by the World Health Organization. The application should stand strong while being able to properly integrate other product lines International SOS offers the EHP in the future. The newly designed EHP application will support and even enhance the workflow of the other application features.