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My main focus while designing this app was to understand and empathise with the patients who join clinical trials. Initially, I wanted to find out a solution that would:
1. Provide patients with continuous oversight of their participation in the trial
2. Reduce patients's hospital visits by digitalising paper-based procedures and introducing a remote approach
3. Providing them with support and a sense of community throughout the duration of the trial
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Most clinical trials are designed to understand the level of efficacy and safety a drug can potentially have. Even a “simple” clinical trial (if we can call any trial simple) has a lot of moving parts, from site selection and set-up to preparing submission packages for regulatory authorities and all the way to transferring the study drug to the site, clinical trials can be pretty hectic.
To empathise with patients going through a clinical trial, I had to develop a deeper understanding of the what trials involve and how they are designed. My research included:
1. Literature review and analysing existing publications on trials
2. Insight gathering from previous industry experience
After the insight gathering process, it was time to start making sense of the data. I realised that I could be dealing with a variety of patient profiles, some of the key factors that could determine the type of persona include socioeconomic status, severity of condition, attitude towards trials, education level, ethnic background and age. However most of the different profiles would have some overlapping areas, and for the purpose of this app I decided to focus on the younger generation and try to zoom into their experience of trials and how it might affect their life.
I that while designing the app I will be mainly focusing on the following points
1. Provide key information to patients as and when is needed
2. Provide patients with a sense of control over their participation
3. Reduce unnecessary administrative tasks patients have to perform
4. Provide patients with support as needed
By allowing patients to schedule and reschedule study visits in their own time, they gain a level of oversight and control that might reduce the impact of the study on their daily routine. This way, they can plan in advance and organise their daily/weekly/monthly tasks accordingly.
On the main dashboard, patients can track their progress in the study by reviewing study visit progress, questionnaire completion progress, and the progress of administering study medication.
After scheduling their study visit, the patient is presented with a screen showing the most important details of the visit that include:
1. Date and time of visit
2. Location of the site where the visit will take place
3. Breakdown of visit activities with the duration of each activity (i.e. CT scan, vital signs, consultation, etc.) and the total duration of the visit
One of the main concerns of patients was the fear of side effects that might occur once they start treatment with the study medication. Also, reporting side effects is usually done through in-patient visits or through a phone call, so by introducing this feature, it allows patients the freedom to report side effects at any given time.
After selecting the symptom they’re experiencing, patients can then select the date and time the symptom occurred, as well as the severity of the symptom. After the symptom is confirmed and added to the log, patients can review the breakdown of all medication side effects they experienced which might, in turn, help them recognise if there are any patterns in their symptoms and discuss that with the investigator.
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One of the insights that came from the research was that patients rely a lot on their family members and community when it comes to clinical trials. For this reason I included the community feature, where patients can connect to other patients in the same trial and provide support. By introducing this feature, patients are less likely to feel alone during their clinical trial journey.
I will continue working on my concept project in the future and some future ideas include:
1. News and updates page for all study updates
2. Repository where patients can learn more about the clinical trial and the study drug
3. Lab results screen where they can receive their results in real time
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I design meaningful experiences that work
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