Kaiser Permanente

At YML, we were tasked by Kaiser Permanente across design, engineering and product strategy to build, launch, and optimize their digital ecosystem. In less than a year, Kaiser Permanente’s web and mobile redesigns improved member’s overall satisfaction with digital from 86% to 92%, the first increase after a five-year flat trend. We were able to deliver on our goals, and we beat out Nike, Apple, and Warby Parker to pick up a Webby Award for best health app in the process. Source

The Problem

In late 2020, two of the biggest topics in the world were healthcare and video calls. Kaiser Permanente hired YML to create a new digital healthcare ecosystem, including getting on-demand support via video, telephone, or chat. We needed to quickly learn and understand how to deliver solutions with simple UX for patients, while also deeply understanding the complicated needs and constraints that come with the healthcare industry.


Team

Me (Senior Product Designer), Creative Director, Junior Product Designer, Front-End Developers, Product Manager

My role

Lead the design of the video visits portion of the digital healthcare ecosystem. This included creating designs informed by research, presenting designs to clients and receiving and incorporating feedback, partnering with Product Managers to deliver on timelines and features, syncing with our Creative Director to dovetail this product into our broader healthcare ecosystem, while mentoring a junior designer through feedback and creating opportunities to design and grow.

The Results

The result was a self-service tool called Get Care Now, a virtual care solution that leverages smart symptom assessment to increase speed, success, and ease of use for people to get care in the midst of a global pandemic. The tools we designed and built led to a huge impact for patients:


  • Appointments booked online up 60% YoY

  • Lab tests viewed online up 80% YoY

  • Medical bills paid online up 22% YoY

Mobile Call

As we were designing, we had to strongly consider our audience. We couldn't assume that every patient is a young, tech-friendly, and healthy individual. We had to keep accessibility considerations at the forefront of our thinking, and sought to never make the patient have to make any assumptions.


  • Large, bold, and clear CTAs

  • Iconography always paired with descriptive text

  • Simple, understandable layouts

Desktop

One of the biggest challenges in this project was understanding the true needs of doctors. It's easy to assume that everything is going to be smooth and on schedule, but during our design process we met with and interviewed doctors that worked at KP and heard the realities of their days. Schedules are often behind, so doctors are rarely able to be early or precisely on time to their virtual appointments.


This led to an extremely high rate of failed calls because patients would leave the call after waiting for 10 minutes and never hearing from their doctor. Implementing a system where doctors can easily alert their patients that they were running late was a core need that they had, so we wanted to make sure we created an easy alert system for both doctors and patients.