Virtual Care for Patients with COPD: Inhaler Education Program
Building better products by building empathy first.
THE PROBLEM
COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, is a progressive lung disease characterized by chronic bronchitis and emphysema, leading to airflow obstruction and breathing difficulties.
Using inhalers and medicines to manage COPD can be challenging and expensive. Some patients skip treatments due to high costs, raising the risk of hospitalization.
Another team at Humana proposed the COPD Manager program to test if covering medicine costs and providing inhaler training could save money and improve health for Humana members.
My team handled the research, design, and app development for pharmacists to conduct surveys, order inhalers, and train members in proper inhaler use. We successfully launched the entire program in under four months. 🎯
Team members sitting back-to-back, simulating pharmacists' challenges when instructing COPD patients over the phone.
EMPATHIZE
We began with a 2-day workshop where we did empathy-building exercises. These exercises involved team members sitting back-to-back, simulating pharmacists' challenges when instructing COPD patients over the phone. 💌
Some team members had their knuckles taped together to mimic the difficulties patients with carpal tunnel might encounter while trying to follow instructions and use an inhaler while on the phone.
Teams created workflows from a limited set of features from the program introduction to get the inhaler in a member's hand.
DEFINE
Next, our teams were divided into groups to envision the pilot's end-to-end experience and how it should make our members feel at every touchpoint and interaction. ⛰️
We based our workflow on secondary research created by other Humana programs that provided personas for our workshop.
These exercises gave us a solid foundation and identified what we need to provide for pharmacists and members every step of the way.
IDEATE
We started by connecting with seven pharmacists to set up regular user interviews and conduct user testing sessions to ensure our designs met pharmacists' and patients' needs. 🤝
My design pair, Amber, and I began creating workflows and wireframes based on our workshop findings and the service design blueprint our COPD team was working on.
A first draft of our prototype that we used to test features with pharmacists.
PROTOTYPE
With a solid foundation, we began prototyping concepts to test with our seven pharmacists. Initially, we thought the milestones checklist would be valuable but later learned about something called a 'coverage gap' that pharmacists were more concerned with. 📝
We wanted to create a way for pharmacists to navigate through each step of the process, which can take several days or weeks, while being able to review past answers and easily navigate.
TEST & REPEAT
Based on user feedback, we combined the milestones feature into a checklist by creating a set of checklist drawers to guide pharmacists through the process as they complete each section.
We conducted ongoing user testing sessions for two months, validating every feature and design direction we worked on. 🔁
This video shows an updated workflow that combines 'milestones' and the wizard checklist.
DEV COLLABORATION
My manager, design pair, and I held several design review sessions with our dev team, ensuring they gave input and ideas on the design direction.
How hard was it to implement certain features? What data do we have readily available? Early on, we learned that some of our design decisions would be difficult to implement. We adjusted accordingly and kept this in mind as we continued to design, test, and deliver future features.
These design review sessions allowed devs to ask questions and get a full picture of the product they were developing. I learned a lot about their world along the way, too. 🤖🤓
IMPACT
Our team met with the service design team over three months to conduct 'rehearsals.' These continuous sessions let each workstream stay informed on the end-to-end experience and let our team validate our direction with business stakeholders, pharmacists, and members.
The COPD medication management program, later named in January 2020, showed impressive results by mid-year, with participants demonstrating significant improvements in medication adherence. 🏆
Adhering to COPD maintenance inhaler medications has demonstrated a positive impact on the health outcomes of our members while simultaneously reducing medical expenses for both patients and Humana.