How a Patient-First Design Helped Uncover Unknown Risk Factors

Designing a Positive and Effective Patient Onboarding Experience

The patient experience in a traditional healthcare model is flawed. Numerous inefficiencies exist, including paperwork, follow-up visits, and redundant information requests. It isn’t easy to find practitioners that you trust, and it can all feel overwhelming. By design, Forfend sought to create a different type of healthcare experience. We worked with the team to design a flow that is accessible, supportive, and patient-first.

One of the unique features of Forfend is that before their first visit, patients provide their health history and a blood sample. This information creates a comprehensive view of the patient’s health needs. Being equipped with the patient’s health history and levels before the visit helps Forfend practitioners be better prepared to guide patients in their health journey.

That said, collecting a comprehensive health history can be onerous and potentially a point of drop-off in the patient’s experience. We worked with the team to prioritize the most important questions to prevent information fatigue. We designed the onboarding flow to be flexible so patients could add information in multiple sessions.

Finding Patient Empathy Using Role-Play

To tackle the telehealth calls, we needed to understand what a patient visit was like. Since we did not have direct access to patients, we tapped into our team’s acting skills and used a design thinking method called role-play. The practitioners created patient profiles, and we used those profiles to get into character and act out 1-hour telehealth visits.

In these sessions, the Forfend practitioners guided us through our patient’s health results and helped us create a plan. This exercise was invaluable in learning the range of emotions a patient might feel during their visit. These sessions also highlighted areas where visuals would be helpful communication tools for the practitioners.

Creating a Simple and Delightful Visual Experience

We wanted to create a modern look and feel for Forfend that is a departure from traditional healthcare. We extended the brand’s bright colors and bold fonts to use large friendly UI elements. To add engaging visuals, we took inspiration from the blood panels and created custom background patterns that animate to morph and change as the patient completes onboarding. The same shapes are used across the experience in icons, panels, and visual aids.

A Successful Product Launch With Life-Changing Results

Forfend first launched in Florida, where they have been able to serve a sizable patient base and are expanding to other states this year. The Florida launch yielded incredible results; nearly 80% of participants uncovered an unknown risk factor or diagnosis. These results were only possible due to the seamless onboarding that helped them collect patient data and ask the right questions during their visit.

On the heels of their success in Florida, Forfend will be made available to employers and partnerships with other health & wellness companies who have been impressed by the strength of the end-to-end experience.