Why the healthcare industry needs UX designers.

John Wood Quartana
Jul 22, 2017 · 5 min read

Last year, a study from Johns Hopkins made headlines with the claim that over 250,000 people a year died from medical errors, making it the third leading cause of death in the country. The study and its numbers were immediately controversial, especially among physicians. But despite the complexity of this issue, patient safety is undeniably a major problem facing the health care industry.

UX or user experience design is typically thought of as just existing within the tech world, designing websites, apps, and operating systems. But the world of UX is so much bigger and has far greater uses and applications.

“User experience” encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” - Don Norman & Jakob Nielsen

The UX process is obviously complex but this graphic is a good, general overview of how products are developed by UX designers.

(source)

Prescription Bottles

We have been using virtually the same design for these for over 70 years. Most of us are so used to them we don’t really stop to think about how difficult they can be to read.

Standard prescription bottle
  • The typeface is small and difficult to read.
  • The black text on a blue background can be difficult to read for many people, which is especially problematic when it is used to display medical warnings that patients should be able to read with ease.
  • There is no coherent information architecture to emphasize what information the patient needs to read in order to take the medication properly and as their doctor intended.

Moreover, if you take multiple medications and/or multiple people in your household take medications it can be easy to mix up bottles because they all look exactly the same.

For reasons such a these, designer Deborah Allen came up with something better, a design she called Clear RX. In fact it was so much better that Target actually bought the design and used it for years until they sold their pharmacy to CVS in 2015.

Target prescription bottles , Clear RX by designer Deborah Adler

Allen’s design was an immediate hit with Target customers. In fact, it was so popular that there were multiple reports that Target customers fished their old bottles out of the trash to save them once CVS took over Target’s in-store pharmacy.

Let’s break down why this design is so successful:

  • The flat rather than round side makes the information much easier to read because users don’t have to turn the bottle to actually read everything.
  • The name and dose of the medication are the most prominent part of the design, thus minimizing confusion and potential mix-ups.
  • It comes with color coded rings to easily distinguish between patients.

User centered design like Clear RX has a real impact on people’s lives. Not every design will have the life-saving potential that Clear RX had, but think about all the other aspects of the healthcare industry that could be improved by similar designs.


Central Line Infections

Central lines are tubes that are inserted into veins and feed medication directly into the heart. They are essential to modern healthcare but because they are a foreign object in your body, they pose a risk of infection. There are approximately 30,000 deaths from central line infections in the United States every year.

Dr. Peter Pronovost is the director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. In 2008 Pronovost was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and was also awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Dr. Pronovost is perhaps best known for his work reducing central line infections.

At the beginning of his research, Pronovost went through the CDC guidelines for reducing central line infections. The CDC’s guidelines turned out to be over 150 pages of complex directions that had over 90 things medical professionals were expected to do. That kind of process would not be implementable on a mass scale with ease as nurses and doctors obviously do not have time to go that many steps for such a standard, common procedure.

After intense research, observation, and testing he created a simple, 5-step checklist for doctors and nurses to follow when first inserting the central line:

1. Wash their hands with soap.

These steps were not only simple, they were user friendly. And soon, Johns Hopkins had reduced its rate of central line infections to zero. Yes, zero. This program was so successful it has been implemented in at least 44 states and countries around the world.

So what does this have to do with UX? Think about the process Pronovost went through to get the results he did.

1. He identified the problem: too many people were getting central line infections.

Sound familiar? Pronovost didn’t build a design like Deborah Adler but he still went through a UX like process to get literally life saving results. Without even realizing it, Pronovost showed just how well UX can be applied to the non-tech world.


The UX process clearly has broad implications far beyond that of its traditional applications. Industries such as the healthcare industry would do well to embrace it.

John Wood Quartana

Written by

LA based UX Designer dedicated to ethical design while understanding & representing a diverse array of ideas and perspectives in my work. www.jwquartana.com

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