Patient Engagement Advisors pharmacy experience: Mobile paradigm lowers patient readmission rate by 48%

Client: Patient Engagement Advisors (PEA)

Role: Lead Designer
As lead designer, I performed heuristic evaluation of current solutions and processes, and conducted ethnographic research. I discovered a better way to meet patient needs, increased pharmacutical fulfillment, and lowered hospital readmission rate among discharged surgery patients

Summary 

Situation
Patient readmission rates were high, around 7%, often caused by patients’ lack of procuring pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics. This poses a risk to patient recovery and additional burden onto hospitals due to avoidable patient readmissions back to hospital to repeat surgeries or procedures.

Opportunity
Reimage a better way for recovering patients to receive their necessary pharmaceuticals. Design a mobile pharmacy experience that fulfills their pharamacutical needs in their room as they recover before discharged from the hospital. 

Actions
1. Research: Ethnographic study of hospital pharmacy operations, interactions with patients and related workflows, level of effort, and necessary compliance paperwork and signatures. 
2. Identifying Opportunities: Uncovered unmet needs to inform solution that will help change behaviors.
3. User-centered Design: Created iPad-based POS and e-commerce system.
4. Empowering Pharmacy Technicians: Enabled in-room medication fulfillment.

Results
Hospitals with the PEA mobile pharmacy solution saw notable improvements: increased medication capture rates and 48% reduced readmissions, improved patient recovery and wellbeing.