Ready, Get Set, Kickoff

View from Gates Hillman, around the corner from our kickoff meeting location

Last week was absolutely frigid in Pittsburgh, and we’re talking below freezing temps here. In the midst of the snow and rain, our team huddled in our room almost every night of the week planning our research strategy in more detail and breaking down our design brief to prepare for Friday’s kickoff.

Getting the giggles and laughs out on the left to execute the picture on the right.

Selin giving us the low down on our plan for the rest of the semester and summer.

To recap, we’re a team of 5 studying Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon working on redesigning the electronic medical record (EMR) experience with AllScripts for the next 25 weeks. As of now, we’re looking to improve the usage and mastery of its Sunrise EHR product, and to uncover that, we’ll be conducting user interviews, observing stakeholders, and testing prototypes with said users to introduce human-centered design into healthcare.

A snippet from our team’s first pass at a research plan.

We also met up with another local industry expert over coffee to learn more about the state of healthcare. Some interesting tidbits we uncovered were that the EMR market is quite saturated and that there is incredible customization that goes into every health system’s EMR setup. Every dropdown or checkbox varies from hospital to hospital and each specialty practice within the hospital. With a stack of government priorities and data collection requirements surrounding meaningful use and population health, EMRs have become cumbersome and prevent physicians from focusing on patient care.

Alas! Friday came and went quickly. We had our kickoff meeting with five AllScripts employees across various roles and levels bright and early in the morning. We were incredibly excited to have their executive VP of Client Services and Delivery attend our kickoff to set the tone and frame how AllScripts sees the healthcare market. Too, the perspective from directors and managers on current education and training services clarified AllScript’s services model and business goals.

Client selfie to mark an exciting occasion.

Last week taught us to get uncomfortable with the unknowns and to constantly ask questions. By asking the why’s, we can then uncover design opportunities and the how-might-we’s. We couldn’t have asked for a more productive kickoff meeting and week.

Thankful and tired,

Daphne

Originally published at medium.com on February 6, 2018.