Evantage has been working in the healthcare realm for over 12 years now in a variety of projects. For the past 2 years, we have been working with a large hospital system to redesign the way they care for patients with chronic conditions. We’ve helped them establish and implement standard care guidelines for all providers and staff to proactively monitor and manage people with conditions like asthma, diabetes, heart failure, kidney disease, heart disease and hypertension (high blood pressure). This is a big change for providers, who today generally treat these patients only when they have complications or their condition worsens. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Healthcare’ Category
Accountable Care Organizations and Patient Engagement
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Personal Health Records Meet Limited Needs of People with Chronic Conditions – Research Study
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010Personal Health Record (PHR) usage remains low, despite conventional wisdom that it could improve the health outcomes of patients with chronic conditions. Evantage Consulting created an internal project to understand the factors that are contributing to the low use of PHRs and evaluate if a caregivers involvement could help drive its use and improve the health outcomes of people with chronic conditions.
Based on the qualitative study conducted with 20 chronically ill patients and/or their caregivers, we found that the caregiver’s involvement in managing a patient’s PHR could drive its use. However the current PHRs meet limited needs of patients with chronic conditions. To drive PHR use and improve health outcomes, patients and caregivers need simpler and more effective PHRs that can fit in their everyday life. The study was conducted in the months of August-September, 2010. All the people interviewed were using one of the available PHRs (Google Health, Microsoft health Vault, a provider-sponsored PHR, or payer-sponsored PHR).
Online Personal Health Records (PHRs): Could caregiver involvement drive PHR use for people with chronic conditions?
Friday, August 20th, 2010Personal Health Records, or PHRs, are health records that are initiated and maintained by a patient. Government incentives to promote adoption and “meaningful use” of EHRs (Electronic Health Records) by physicians has also raised the healthcare community’s interest in online PHRs such as Google Health and Microsoft Vault. A recent California Healthcare Foundation survey revealed that PHRs can empower some people to take better care of themselves, especially people with chronic conditions. However, the growth of PHR use remains low even for this high-potential segment.
Evantage believes that a key component of this issue is the involvement of caregivers in a patient’s PHR. To dig deeper, we are conducting primary research with patients and their caregivers. We want to learn how to improve the design of PHRs to incorporate the needs of patients who have caregivers. We want to learn whether a better designed PHR could empower patients and their caregivers to use it more and experience improved health outcomes as a result.
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Trends in Healthcare and what they mean for designers
Monday, May 17th, 2010What are the key trends in the healthcare industry? What implications do they have on the design solution? If you are a product planner, business analyst or designer you may already be familiar with these questions. Lately, my projects have been focused in the healthcare space. Because of this, I have been studying the key trends and analyzing their implications on the solutions I design. In this post, I’ll share my learning and outline how I use them to guide my design process.
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User Experience and Healthcare
Friday, June 26th, 2009When I was putting together a presentation on User Experience and Healthcare for Refresh Portland, I stepped back to see if I do anything differently when designing products and applications for Healthcare clients than I do for clients in other industries. After looking at the emerging trends in the Healthcare industry and the shifting landscape of online user behavior, it became clear to me that when designing for Healthcare, I focus more user research and I prefer smaller, more iterative cycles within the design process.
The attached presentation details my insights on the subject and describes the steps I feel one should focus on when designing products and applications for Healthcare users.
A look at Healthcare Systems and Web 2.0
Friday, May 22nd, 2009Recently I attended the Health 2.0 conference and was impressed by the drive and the passion displayed by everyone to transform the Healthcare industry. This included entrepreneurs, policy makers, patient advocates, physicians, corporate and research organizations. The conference discussions highlighted the changing role of patients and physicians and showcased the different ways in which Web 2.0 tools had been used to help bring this change. It was a good platform to get a sneak preview into the future of the digital landscape of Healthcare and evaluate some of our strategies for getting there.
