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Data  source: Healcare Informatics, July 4 2013

Project

Medication mismanagement has a significant impact on hospital
re-admission rates, medical labour, and patient well-being.

The estimated cost of non-adherence in the US is approx $290 billion for all patients in 2012. Non-adherence is a complex issue that often goes beyond pure forgetfulness.

The current pace of technological development is shifting the nature of doctor-patient relationships. Today's patients are proactive and eager to be in control of their health. We are moving from specialized care to empowered self-service.

The project's goal was to uncover market opportunities and using technology as a medium, design user-centric products that empower and assist in medication routines.

Personas enabled us to understand the user's needs and expectations, their pain points in the real journey and their behavioural patterns.

Identifying personas allowed us to go through specific use cases which unlocked new market opportunities and enabled us to develop a range of products answering to a variety of medication routines and users.

Key Insights

Personas

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Learning that medication regimes vary greatly depending on the lifestyle and condition of the patient meant we focused on defining opportunities around specific use cases rather than demographics.

Often medication nonadherence is a result of underlying beliefs and behavioural attitude rather than simple forgetfulness. However, some of the core needs of the users primarily overlapped:

• I want it to be discreet​I want to feel in control of my health

• I want to be able to learn more
• I want to be able to travel
• I want it to be convenient
  

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Industry
Healthcare, Consumer Products, IoT

Expertise
User Research, Stakeholder Workshops, Personas, User Journey Maps, Usability Testing, Product Semantics, Ergonomics Studies, Interface Design, User Experience Design, Service Design

Designed while working at Buzz Products. 2016.

medication aids, conceptualised ideas and prototyped them.

We have identified clear product categories and began developing a digital platform to fuel and support these products.  

There are many reasons why a patient isn't adhering to their medication routine. These reasons can be both intentional and non-intentional. For example, patients who take preventative medication won't always recognise the importance of consistency as the consequence of mismanaging medication is not easily tracked.

Over the period of two years, we spoke to a wide range of users. Together we reviewed the latest 

Journey

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Home sachet dispenser 

A Wi-Fi connected product that uses visual and audio alerts to remind the patient when it's time to take their medication.

Use case

Sachet system users with a more complex medication regimen.

Schedule set up via mobile app

Green light indicates it's time to take medication

Red light indicates missed medication

Press down to open the lid

Concept development