Case Study: UX Research on the doctor to doctor consultation
Hello 👋🏻 How are you? Here’s a study of how I solved a real-time problem for doctors as well as patients. Are you ready? Let’s go 🚀
Context🧵
I recently visited a hospital for my first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. All of you who have been there, know how long the procedure is. As I was waiting there, I observed the other patients waiting in the ward. There was a patient in the clinic who suffered a severe fracture and needed immediate care. She was pregnant as well. The doctor after checking the patient discovered he needed a second opinion of a gynecologist before proceeding to operate. The doctor was losing time and hence had to transfer the patient to another hospital. This situation got me thinking what if doctors had access to other doctors or specialists when they needed, a medium to get in touch with specialists urgently. In this case, the doctor attending to the pregnant lady could immediately get in touch with obstetricians/gynecologists. I decided to dig deep into the problem.
I thought to do an in-depth analysis into this problem only to find out that the problem of doctor to doctor consultation exists for real.
Our least favorite ‘C’ word, COVID-19,has exposed India’s fragile healthcare system, especially the rural health infrastructure. I gathered my thoughts and started noting the pointers I had to work on to help doctors and patients with this problem. Firstly, I started with defining the problem statement.
Problem Statement🔧
- Help bridge the gap between doctors for information sharing.
- Make doctors get a second opinion easily via doctor-to-doctor consultation.
As I noted this problem, I also wondered what are other opportunities that we need to understand.
What is Information Sharing?🧐
Doctors frequently share documents/ reports/ files between themselves. Also, medical students are seldom looking for ways to learn from senior doctors and reach out to them for their skills and expertise.
What is a Second Opinion?🤔
Doctors often seek out second opinions in peculiar cases. They reach out to other/ senior doctors or specialists for a detailed understanding and their insights.
Why Second Opinion?👩⚕️
A second opinion also can offer insight into additional treatment options that the first doctor may have missed. As a result, the first doctor becomes more informed about what is available and can make an educated decision about the patient’s healthcare and his/her/their treatment plan. Doctors need opinions on matters beyond their specialty, now more than ever.
To summarise, this is the problem statement I would like to highlight :
My Process👩🏻💻
- To begin my process of research, I validated with doctors in form of user interviews.
- I then authenticated my primary research in form of questions.
- I documented what I found in user interviews in form of questions and answers.
- Analyzing these answers, helped me corroborate and find insights.
Let’s begin with Primary Research!
User Interview🗣️
Conducted virtual interview with 2 Doctors on Zoom call.
What do you do when you get a patient beyond your specialty?
Validation of ‘second opinion’ observed.
Observation: Both doctors go for a second opinion.
Opportunity: A medium for doctors to connect in a better way and quickly.
Have you ever felt the need for a second opinion?
Validation: Doctors try and treat the patient outside their scope.
Observation: Doctors need advice on cases beyond their field.
Opportunity: A way for doctors to learn and explore more fields.
How do you approach another doctor for his consultation?
Validation: The doctor prefers a direct mode of communication
Observation: Doctors need an effortless mode of communication.
Opportunity: Build a better platform for connection (time-efficient and quick).
What do you do when you cannot reach the desired doctor/specialists?
Validation: Doctors find it difficult to connect with other doctors personally.
Observation: When they can’t refer to anyone in the circle, doctors try and book consultations with other doctors.
Have you ever faced any problem connecting to other doctors?
Validation: Doctors find it difficult to align their busy schedules. Observation: Ambiguity of not knowing what time to contact.
How can we help the doctors in rural India through technology?
Opportunity: An open forum ( like quora) to share information and ideas. A platform where doctors can just shoot their queries and specialists can answer them. Other doctors can also learn from this information exchange.
Do you think a second doctor’s perspective is a good practice?
Validation: Both the doctors validated that a second opinion is needed. Opportunity: A medium where doctors can take second opinions from other doctors.
To conclude, here are the observations I made from user interviews:
1. Doctors often go for a second opinion.
2. Doctors need opinions on matters beyond their scope.
3. A easier mode of communication is needed.
4. Doctors dont know whom to reach out outside their circles, and what time to reach out.
Personal Observation: User interviews were a lot of fun for me, especially listening to the amazing experiences of these doctors.
User Surveys📄
This is what doctors had to say about the second opinion. 52 doctors took the survey.
How long have you been practicing medicine?
Are you a registered doctor on any healthcare consultation app?
How would you define your online consultation experience?
How often do you reach out to other doctors for second opinions?
Is it difficult to reach out to other doctors?
Is it difficult finding specialists when you need them?
My observations from the User survey:
1. Doctors with less than 1 year of experience tend to reach out more to other doctors.
2. Majority of the doctors are already familiar with the online consultation experience and sharing of documents online.
3. Majority of the doctors reach out to other doctors.
4. Most of these doctors find it difficult to contact other doctors.
5. More than 80% of doctors have a hard time finding specialists.
6. 85% of doctors feel a better means for communication is needed.
The Primary Research along with User interviews have validated my problem statement.
After I completed my Primary Research, I went one level deeper and did Secondary Research. Let us also see what the internet says about healthcare in regards to the doctor to doctor communication.
Whoa! This seems to be a much serious issue than I thought. How can we solve this?
Insights🧠
Summarising entire research by giving out Qualitative and Quantitative insights from the above.
Opportunities 💡
The Pandemic has left the Indian healthcare system vulnerable. Where doctors can not reach physically, they can access the patient’s file digitally and assist the doctor sitting in remote areas and help identify the problem and recommend more viable solutions.
While researching, I also discovered that students in medical college seek out the opportunity to connect with specialists or other doctors to learn more.
When I went for my second shot of the vaccine, I shared my findings with the nurse who was tending to me. Her first reaction was “Will we finally be able to understand complex cases that we have no answers to?” Her emotions displayed how deeply she cared about her patients and the hope of treating all the patients irrespective of the problem. Noticing her reaction, I felt a little proud of my research and my attempt to solve such an important problem.
About the Web Application🔎
Features Suggestions :
- Online doctor appointment booking.
- Doctors inventory: accessible to all those who need it — other doctors / medical students.
- Convenient and smart search engine to use the map to find doctors.
- Text-based chat and video call facility.
- Sharing of reports/files between doctors ( before/during the meeting )
- Blog with health expert insights.
- Video Conferencing — if needed, patients can also be added to the call.
My Learnings🧩
When I selected this niche I did not know much about the healthcare sector. But looking back now, I have gained so much knowledge along the way. 🧠
- It was difficult to schedule calls with doctors. In few cases, doctors had to leave the meeting mid-way because of emergencies. I had to reschedule so many times. Issues like these made me realize that there is a need for such an app.
- A huge amount of patience and planning skills were needed to schedule and reschedule the interviews.
- I did not know how to carry out certain tasks and through this experience, I learned all that and so much more. 🤓
- Learned a lot about data analytics and thematic analysis.
Finally, after a little bit of struggle and hustle( and a lot of help from doctors ), I finished the project. 😏
This is the end of my case study. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. To continue on this, I’m working on a second case study in finding solutions and designing them.
