EMR – Cerebral 🧠

OVERVIEW 📌

Cerebral is an online mental health platform that provides therapy and medication management for conditions such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, ADHD (in some states), PTSD, and more. The service operates through a subscription model and includes teletherapy sessions via video or phone, medication prescriptions (delivered directly or picked up at a pharmacy), and follow-up care through therapists or care counselors. The clinicians use an EMR (electronic medical record) system, which facilitates secure documentation of patient information, prescriptions, treatment progress, and communications between care teams.

 

Outcomes 📊

• Increased clinician performance by 20% by reducing friction in filling out patient information.
• Reduced completion time from 70-75 minutes to just 40-45 minutes per clinician by improving the note-taking process with simplified clicks and multiple selections instead of free text.
• Improved clinician satisfaction and engagement, as evidenced by positive feedback due to a more intuitive and streamlined interface.

 

 

READ FULL PROCESS ⬇️

The Problem 🔍

• Bad Reviews From Users: We received a lot of negative feedback regarding how our clinicians were always typing, which made patients feel like they weren’t paying enough attention. This led to a lot of frustration, especially among new users.
• Taking Notes Was Too Complicated: Our clinicians used the EMR to document each patient’s information, and it was taking about 70 minutes to complete all appointment details, causing delays between sessions.
• Losing Money: Clinicians are paid per hour, and the extra 10–15 minutes spent taking notes was becoming a significant issue, especially since it was their own unpaid personal time.

The Opportunity 🎯

• How might we reduce clinician friction and improve their efficiency in taking notes, ensuring that they can focus more on patient care instead of administrative tasks?
• How might we streamline the EMR system to reduce session completion time by 10-15 minutes per clinician, improving appointment turnaround and maximizing the number of patients seen each day?
• How might we enhance clinician satisfaction by designing a more intuitive interface, reducing the time spent on note-taking and increasing their engagement with the platform?
• How might we improve patient perception of clinician focus by simplifying the EMR interface and reducing the amount of time clinicians spend documenting information, making it feel like their needs are being prioritized?
• How might we ensure that the redesigned EMR system scales effectively as the number of clinicians grows, maintaining efficiency even with over 500 clinicians in the network?

 

My Role 🙋‍♂️

I was the product designer and worked closely with my manager/lead designer. Due to the complexity of the project, the team was quite large, as each PM was responsible for a different aspect.

 

The Team 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

• Product Manager: Yara Mukaled
• Product Manager: Monica Cabaj
• Product Manager: Zoe Snow
• Operations Manager: Conor Hill
• Lead Designer: Anckia Treurnicht
• Product Designer: Wagner Henriquez  (myself)

 

The Process 🕹️

• Discover:
  • Research user needs and behaviors.
  • Interview mental health professionals and patients.
  • Observe users interacting with the current page.
• Define:
  • Synthesize research findings.
  • Develop user personas and scenarios.
  • Define project scope, goals, and metrics.
• Design:
  • Brainstorm design ideas.
  • Evaluate ideas based on user needs, feasibility, and goals.
  • Develop sketches, wireframes, and flow diagrams.
• Deliver:
  • Build low-fidelity prototypes.
  • Conduct usability testing sessions.
  • Iterate on the design based on feedback and insights.

 

The SOLUTION 🥁 

• Build a patient summary section within the patient chart for fast information consultation.
• Work on the information architecture of the patient chart to facilitate navigation.

 

Success metrics 📈

• Reduce clinician admin time before and during visits.
• Decrease time needed to retrieve key client information.
• Reduce visit preparation time.
• Decrease time to action key decisions during a visit.
• Improve visit quality for patients.

 

DISCOVER

Research Approach 🕵️

Hypothesis: Improving the EMR client page layout and providing a patient summary of key metrics and insights will improve clinician efficiency and the client visit experience.

• Goal one: Identify the key information clinicians need to review during patient visits.
• Goal two: Identify the most challenging aspects of the current client chart layout for clinicians.
• Goal three: Understand the workflow and preparation process of ILV prescribers and how it contributes to successful visits, compared to the workflow of prescribers for normal, scheduled visits.
• Goal four: Compare the workflow and behavior of clinicians receiving high vs. low client feedback to uncover successful practices.

 

Research Methodology 🎬

User interviews: Conducted 30-minute interviews with six therapists and 5 prescribers to understand their perspectives on patient information, EMR pain points, and visit workflows.

 

 

Preparing for insightful conversations: Clinicians receive a project breakdown ahead of user interviews.

 

 

Identifying user pain points: Insights from user interviews informing the patient chart redesign.

 

Shadow sessions: Observed the visit preparation and process of two therapists and three prescribers to gain insights into their workflows and pain points.

 

 

Insight into behavior: Screenshot from a user shadow session within Dscout.

 

“It’s like going on a scavenger hunt for the right information, you have to keep expanding and scrolling down to the very bottom to find what you need.” – Cerebral clinician from user interview

 

Stakeholder workshops: Organized workshops to gather long-term performance objectives, identify common pain points and areas for improvement, and prioritize key themes for the project.

 

 

Clinician Workshop with Clinical Advisory Board:
Collaborated with members of the Clinical Advisory Board to gather insights on the most important information needed for visit preparation and how it could be better organized within the EMR system.

 

 

Research Synthesis:
I organized the research findings using a Miro board, where I tagged each note to categorize the data effectively. By creating a heat map, I identified key pain points and clustered related insights to uncover patterns and trends. This process, combined with outcomes from earlier workshops, allowed me to draw meaningful conclusions from the research and pinpoint actionable insights.

 

Key findings 📑

During my research, I identified key issues affecting clinician workflows, focusing on process inconsistency, information hierarchy, and technical challenges. These findings are detailed below:

Process Inconsistency:

• Impacts on patient notes quality: The quality of patient notes varies significantly based on each clinician’s approach. Patterns were observed in higher-scored notes, highlighting structural inconsistencies.
• Inefficient visit preparation: Poor-quality notes lead to longer preparation times, causing frustration and confusion during appointment preparation.

Information Hierarchy:

• Missing patient summary: Clinicians spend extra administrative time preparing for visits due to the absence of a patient summary feature.
• Inadequate flagging system: There’s no reliable method to track critical alerts or high-acuity events, posing risks to patient safety.

Technical Challenges:

• Layout inefficiencies: The interface wastes space at the top of the screen while cramming dense information into lower sections, creating a confusing user experience.
• Navigation difficulties: Clinicians face excessive scrolling and jumping between sections of the patient chart, making it difficult to locate key information efficiently.

 

Restructuring Chart IA & Navigation ✨

Based on research findings and feedback from clinician interviews, navigation and usability were identified as major pain points in Cerebral’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. To tackle these issues, the project prioritized reworking the Information Architecture (IA) of the patient chart. The redesign focused on simplifying navigation by consolidating tabs and buttons and introducing a left-panel sub-navigation system. These changes resulted in a more intuitive and efficient design, enhancing the overall user experience for clinicians.

New IA snapshot: streamlined navigation for better usability and efficiency in Cerebral’s EMR patient chart.

 

Crafting User Stories 💬

To confirm that the redesigned patient summary page and chart navigation met user needs, I collaborated with the product manager to create user stories informed by research insights. These user stories guided the design and development process, ensuring we prioritized the user’s perspective. By anchoring these stories in real challenges and goals, we developed a design that directly addressed clinicians’ pain points.
Here are some of the user stories we used:

• As a clinician, I want to view a patient’s medical history summary on a single page so I can quickly understand their health status.
• As a clinician, I want to navigate through the patient chart easily so I can quickly find the information I need to prepare for a visit.
• As a clinician, I want quick links within the patient chart so I can jump to related sections without searching manually, saving time and increasing efficiency.
• As a clinician, I need a clearer interface with an improved information hierarchy so I can quickly identify key details and make informed decisions about patient care.

 

ideation

WIREFRAMES 📓

During the wireframe phase, I used insights from research to design a better patient chart that made it easier for clinicians to work. I added a patient summary and reorganized the chart layout to make navigation simpler and finding information faster. This step was key to making sure the design solved real user problems before moving on to the detailed, final version.

 

 

TESTING LAYOUTS 📐

 

Option approved: Patient chart wireframe with integrated patient summary, utilizing the existing tab structure navigation for improved efficiency

 

REVIEWING DESING 🔬 

I presented multiple design options for the patient summary to the team. One approach maintained the existing tab navigation of the patient chart, while the other introduced a sidebar with tabs prioritizing key information for better accessibility. I tested the wireframes with clinical stakeholders to identify the most effective layout and refined the designs based on their feedback. Collaborating with the engineering team, I ensured the designs were practical and aligned with the project timeline. Ultimately, the team selected the sidebar option as it best supported clinicians’ needs and improved their workflow.

 

 

I was getting close: During this iteration process, we tested various ideas to improve time management for our clinicians. This proposal was partially approved, so I kept the approved elements and discarded everything else.

 

Legacy Patient Chart Interface 👴

Before presenting the updated version, please take a look to the old UI with unused space and poor information hierarchy.

 

This is real: Clinicians suffered while using this for almost 3 years, but they got used to it! See full image here.

 

NEW INTERFACE, NEW EXPERIENCE 🖥️

The new patient summary page was designed to serve as a centralized space for clinicians to efficiently review critical patient details. The updated user interface adhered to the new EMR design system, ensuring a consistent and user-friendly experience. Improvements in information hierarchy and visibility of visit details, along with redesigned chart navigation, significantly enhanced the ability to retrieve essential data. The previous chart layout featured an outdated and cluttered interface, which often hindered users from quickly finding the information they needed.

 

Optimizing Information: Updated UI and improved hierarchy for efficient information retrieval. See full image here.

 

UI preview 📱

Quick overview of the new and updated EMR (Electronic Medical Record), including a calendar and messaging system.

 

project outcomes

WHAT was my contribution on this PROJECT? 🤠

By the end of this project I delivered:

• Research report that outlines all the major user pains and needs around the patient chart
• Recommendations on how to improve the patient chart and when to implement these changes
• User stories that guided the design and development of the new patient summary page and chart navigation
• Wireframes and prototypes that visually represent the new patient summary page and chart navigation design
• Final design assets and specifications for implementation

 

CONCLUSION

what i have learned from this project? 🤓

The newly implemented patient summary and chart navigation in the Cerebral EMR have successfully addressed the pain points and inefficiencies identified during user research. The updated navigation allows clinicians easy access to important patient information, while the intuitive, organized layout of the patient summary places the most relevant and actionable data at the top of the page, reducing administrative time before and during visits. This improvement helps clinicians better utilize their time and make informed decisions during client visits, ultimately leading to better patient care.

 

It’s quite common sign a NDA, or non-disclosure agreements, so I’m limited to show some part of the process or none in most cases. This apply to all my portfolio.