Bahmni Electronic Medical Record System
App redesign
Deliverables
Duration
Role
Team/client
Redesigned user experience and user interface of the app
1 month
July - August 2021
July - August 2021
UI/UX Designer
Project with Mayank, Tejash. Guided by Prof. Debayan Dhar, DOD IIT Guwahati
This is a redesign project done part of the interaction design course of the 5th semester curriculum. The task was to pick an app or website with poor usability and using user experience guidelines, come up with a better and more intuitive UI.
Understanding
What are EMR Systems?
EMR stands for Electronic Medical Record, which is a server-based system that hospitals can use to manage their patients. These systems are equipped with patient management profiles, order tests, record diagnosis, analyze past diagnoses, etc. These systems were created to improve efficiency and reduce the loss of data due to analog data storage.
research
The First Step
Initial interaction with users
The initial interaction with users:
Dr. Prakash, currently doing his diploma in clinical pathology and MCh Neurosurgery at CMC, Vellore.
Upon interaction, the following insights were gained:
"The current state of EMR(Electronic Medical Record) is extremely poor. It's very rare to see a complete implementation of an EMR even at large-scale hospitals"
~ From his experience in using such systems, he stated that they were often unreliable and were very difficult to operate
~ It usually takes quite some time until a new user is able to train themselves in using the software
~ One major reason for that is the number of offline records present in such hospitals and the manpower it would take to convert them to electronic versions.
~The hospitals also fear the loss of efficiency in the administration due to the learning curve of the implemented system being too steep.
On enquiring about the EMR system they use, he redirected us to the OpenMRS software, which resembles the system they use themselves
Dr. Prakash, currently doing his diploma in clinical pathology and MCh Neurosurgery at CMC, Vellore.
Upon interaction, the following insights were gained:
"The current state of EMR(Electronic Medical Record) is extremely poor. It's very rare to see a complete implementation of an EMR even at large-scale hospitals"
~ From his experience in using such systems, he stated that they were often unreliable and were very difficult to operate
~ It usually takes quite some time until a new user is able to train themselves in using the software
~ One major reason for that is the number of offline records present in such hospitals and the manpower it would take to convert them to electronic versions.
~The hospitals also fear the loss of efficiency in the administration due to the learning curve of the implemented system being too steep.
On enquiring about the EMR system they use, he redirected us to the OpenMRS software, which resembles the system they use themselves
OpenMRS is a collaborative open-source EMR software to support the delivery of health care in developing countries. The software can be easily downloaded from the official website, and you can register yourself as a demo user to try out the system.
The above are the softwares which are built upon Open MRS. Bahmni has been chosen as the software of study
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic evaluation done on logging in and consulting workflows.
Competitive Analysis
Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the platform against its top competitions which are Dr.Chrono, Kario Clinic and RXNT.
User Survey
A survey was conducted to ascertain the user group along with problems they face while using the platform.
Key points gathered from survey
Critical pain points with occurrence rate
Survey Report
User Interview
After identifying the users using the survey, 10 different people were interviewed from various sub domains and the details were aggregated. Here are 2 interview transcripts(shortened).
Empathy Map
The users thoughts were organized using an empathy map
User Journey Map
The user journey map for the two tasks that were identified is created
Scenario 1: Adding a new patient
Scenario 2: Conducting a consultation
User Persona
Based on the research, we craft an user persona to define our primary user.
Brainstorming
List out solutions for all the problems identified
Kano Analysis
Combining all the feature requests and changes which were identified through research an extensive list of features of the app was arrived upon. The features are now sorted with the help of KANO model according to its importance. As the time is limited, this helps in finding the most important features to be developed in the app.
Redesigned Information Architecture
Based on the analysis and research, a new information architecture was created
Redesigned Task Flow
Based on the analysis and research, after creating the new information architecture, we recreate the task flow using the new IA and insights.
Wireframes
Wireframes were created for to visualize the screens
High-fidelity Screens
These are the redesigned screens. Use the slider to look at the original version for comparision
Login Page
The new design language was adopted and a more cleaner and minimal login screen was designed.
Dashboard
The most used and seen part of the entire system, The entire design has been rethought to only include the most necessary features as major CTAs as identified through the research. All the major branches of clinical therapy have been classified into its own pages.
Patients
The listing of all the patients on the system can be seen here. The current status of the patient is also indicated alongside crucial patient information
Adding New Patient
The patient addition form is now broken down into separate parts to aid the user
Additional Details Page
The following page in the add new patient panel. The page is broken down into
Consultancy Page
The patients tab has been split into seperate tabs based on the point at which the patient is in the medical process. Patients who are awaiting consultancy can be accessed by the doctor directly through this consultancy page. It also has status indicators for tests and reports.
Patient History
Each patients history is now presented in a much more easy to access manner. The cluttered UI of the original software is now organized and compartmentalized to ease the users cognitive load
Test Order
The ordering test tab is one of the most used tabs and the original had a very cluttered and difficult to navigate UI. The redesign was aimed to reduce clutter and ensure system status is visible at all times to the user.
Observations
The entire consultation is now broken down into a step by step process which the doctor can access easily. The observations panel now has a proper cognitive walkthrough cues for the user to easily navigate the page.
Diagnosis
Adding the diagnosis is not used much immediately after starting a consultation as prognosis is mostly recorded as observations, so the diagnosis panel is made into a much simpler page to register the final diagnosis along with prognosis if necessary.