KRUTSCH Design
 
 

OPTUM’S Assessment Builder

An enterprise software application used to build clinical assessment workflows to guide and ensure a smooth interaction between clinicians and their patients/members.

 

Early working prototype as a Microsoft Windows WPF application.

The Goal

OPTUM needed to enable medical subject matter experts to confidently develop and manage a large library of Assessment Workflows.

These Assessment Workflows are used by clinicians to assist in interviewing patients, with respect to prescribed treatment plans and general well-being.

The Main Success Scenario

Create a relaxed and positive dialog between the interviewer and the patient by minimizing the cognitive workload for the clinician.

Designing The Application

User Study First

We interviewed 16 clinicians (registered nurses), as well as a dozen in-house medical specialists to understand the needs, tasks, and mindset of the user.

 
 
Clinicians@2x.png
Medical Specialists@2x.png
 
 

User Study Takeaways Turn Into Design Focus

While performing our user study, we discovered three key areas to focus our design efforts:

Consolidate information and workflow. Each study subject expressed a strong desire to distill the number of 'screens' they switch between, during the course of conducting an assessment.

Eliminate surprises within the work-flow. Each sub-task within an assessment should be expected or anticipated, with changes to common assessment sections made visibly obvious, prior to the start of the patient/member interaction.

Design around a toolbox and template pattern. The current Assessment Library struggles with redundancy; tribal knowledge is required to avoid duplicating existing assessment elements.

 
 

Early mock-up used to illustrate a solution for a salient user issue: confidence in the workflow.

 
 

Process and Deliverables

  1. Summary review for Sr. Management detailing study results, with clinician interviews and observation foot-notes.

  2. A study-driven persona catalog, use cases and prioritized task lists.

  3. Concept sketches, iteratively developed with in-house BA and IT teams.

  4. High-fidelity wireframes and visual language sets, illustrating design and task flow for key use cases.

  5. Working WPF application prototype, subsequently completed and shipped by UnitedHealth Group development assets.

 
 

Wireframe Examples

 
 

WIREFRAMES

Build New Assessments

Based on the functional requirement to maintain "questions", as opposed to creating new questions from scratch.

Catalog traversal replaces search function and implicitly provides the association of category, vs. a separate step, and avoids redundancy.

 
 

WIREFRAMES

Linking Together Assessments

Building a new Assessment from previously approved question using a Palette Pattern.

That is, using a palette of approved questions, answers and information elements in an Assessment Builder role.

 
 

WIREFRAMES

Copy/Paste Assessment Building

Managing and/or building new Assessments by locating, then copying and pasting approved questions, answers and information items.

Shows an example of searching for existing content, then dragging-and-droping elements into the Assessment flowchart.

An embedded wizard is used for branching and scoring options.