QuickER
QuickER is a patient-first service that offers streamlined, accessible, and customized patient guidance and support before, during, and after every emergency room visit.
Project Overview
QuickER was a project completed for the Innovation and Design course at Columbia University. Our team was tasked to identify and solve a problem that New York City residents face in the domain of healthcare using technology. We chose to specifically address medical emergencies and proposed a mobile-app based solution that enhances user experience and eliminates pain points during visits to medical emergency rooms.
Responsibilities
UX Research
Ideation
Product Design
Timeline
Oct - Dec 2023
Team
Anavi Lohia
Anika Malhotra
Aryan Ray
Damian Rogers
Elakiya Sivakumar
Rachel Michelson
UX Research
We conducted three 45 minute interviews with users who has recent experiences visiting medical emergency rooms to identify key user pain points.
Confusion and Panic
Extremely long wait times
Unclean ER, fear of additional sickness
Paper statements hard to track
Repetitive information sharing
Waiting in pain
Cumbersome paperwork
Bias and stereotyping
Poor communication
We then conducted secondary research on the topic to help determine the most pressing pain points that led to some key insights
Average wait times in NYC emergency rooms is reported to be as high as
201 minutes
Average wait times in US emergency
rooms is reported to be as high as
145 minutes
Problem Statement
In emergency medical situations, patients face delays due to long wait times, limited access to centralized information, and complex intake processes. These challenges hinder timely access to critical care and compromise patient outcomes and experience.
There is a pressing need to streamline these procedures to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency medical services.
Storyboarding
We performed individual storyboarding exercises to understand and visualize a user’s experience through every step of their journey in the event of a medical emergency
Final iteration of User Experience Map
Designs
Solution
QuickER
QuickER is a patient-first service that offers streamlined, accessible, and customized patient guidance and support before, during, and after every emergency room visit.
User value
Live information about emergency room densities, distance, and quality ratings to help users make informed decisions
On-the go symptom uploading and sharing feature to reduce wait time at the ER
Integration with smart watches for quick access to vitals
Consolidated diagnostic and aftercare information for increased transparency and improved communication
Reflections
This solution significantly depends on establishing key relationships with hospitals, emergency rooms, and first responders to update existing systems and incorporate incoming data from quickER to truly provide a seamless experience to patients and increase emergency room efficiency.
While our solution attempts to address patient concerns, it does not account for paint points faced by healthcare professionals. An effective solution in this scenario would need to account for inefficiencies for both patients and healthcare professionals for the system to succeed.