Federal Healthcare Organization
DESIGN AND Research
Leveraging Design Sprints and Human-Centered Design to Drive Innovation in Public Sector Care Decision Solutions
Our team partnered with a federal healthcare organization to reimagine the future of a care decision solution. By leveraging lean, agile, and human-centered design principles, we conducted structured interviews, design sprints, and visioning activities to engage clinicians directly in the design process. This case study demonstrates how Lean Discovery, Information Architecture, and Prototyping within a human-centered framework drove innovation in public-sector healthcare systems, offering actionable strategies to enhance care decision solutions that align with clinical workflows and improve patient care.
Note:
For confidentiality purposes, all commercial details and proprietary information have been redacted. If you'd like to learn more or see additional work samples, please reach out via email.
The Approach
Lean/Agile Design and Research: We applied scalable lean research methods—both qualitative and quantitative—to uncover critical pain points in clinician workflows and identify opportunities for efficiency and satisfaction.
Human-Centered Design (HCD): Using HCD practices, we collaborated with clinicians to understand their needs and iteratively validate ideas, ensuring solutions were both viable and impactful.
Lean Discovery: We integrated discovery efforts into the product development lifecycle, ensuring the team addressed the right problems by aligning design solutions with user priorities.
Information Architecture: By focusing the structure and organization of information towards clinician mental modals and the clinical workflow, we enhanced findibility and streamlined navigation, enabling clinicians to access critical information more efficiently.
Prototyping: Through collaborative workshops, we developed prototypes at varying fidelities to test and refine ideas with end-users, empowering clinicians to shape the future of care decision platforms.
During outreach, we asked clinicians to come ready to sketch, used sketching as a medium to gather their insights and ideas around the focus areas, using mural as a way to capture their ideas in a conversational forum.
The Impact
Refreshed standards for user-driven innovation
By integrating these principles and practices, our team is actively addressing complex challenges posed by legacy systems and hierarchical organizational structures, setting refreshed standards for user-driven innovation in the public sector. This human-centered approach generated actionable insights and facilitated rapid design iterations. The result was ongoing user experience improvements focused on:
Care decisions support solution workflow efficiencies to help reduce cognitive load.
Enhancements to the usability of the solution through intuitive navigation and better information organization aligned with clinician mental modals, tailored towards roles and speciality.
Encouraging ongoing clinician engagement and applying human-centered design principles to drive innovation aligned with real-world needs and continuous agile delivery improvements.
Building on insights from ideation sessions and user interviews, themes were distilled and transformed into low-fidelity sketches. This process helped to consolidate the user-driven concepts, serving as a foundation for future validation and alignment activities while maintaining a user-centered, design-driven approach to refining the experience.
Key Takeaways
Engaging Clinicians in Co-Design: Leveraging practical techniques to actively involve clinicians throughout the design process fosters stronger buy-in and results in more effective, user-centered solutions.
Human-Centered Design in Healthcare: Employing HCD principles ensures that support tools align with real-world workflows, driving continuous improvement and meaningful impact in care decision platforms.
Lean Design Frameworks: Applying lean UX methods with stakeholder alignment drives iterative improvements, overcoming challenges in complex hierarchies and legacy systems.