It doesn't take the stealth of a cyberattacker to cause a healthcare data breach. Typical workplace occurrences like leaving a sensitive document on a printer tray also can lead to data breaches. In healthcare organisations, it happens more than you think. Seven in 10 managers at healthcare organisations have seen or picked up documents containing confidential or sensitive information left in the printer.
Close to two-thirds (63%) say they are concerned their employees or contractors have printed and left behind a document that could lead to a data breachDespite widespread adoption of electronic health record systems, most hospitals still use both paper and electronic documents for patient care. Healthcare cyberattacks overall are on the rise, with nearly 32 million patient records breached in 2019—double all of 2018.
There were 81 healthcare data breaches of physical protected health information such as charts, documents and films last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' breach portal. Paper/films were involved in 22% of breaches.Sixty-nine percent of healthcare tech and business managers reported that their organisation had experienced at least one data breach in the past 12 months, and nearly 3 in 4 (70%) of those data breaches involved the loss or theft of paper documents or electronic devices containing sensitive information. The majority (74%) of those lost or stolen documents contained consumer/customer information or financial information, according to the survey.
About two-thirds of healthcare managers surveyed said they are not confident that their organisation is able to govern the use, protection and disposal of paper documents. That's particularly concerning in an industry that often still uses paper documents to record patient information.
I went into the hospital with another designer and observed the walk-in process for a few days. Some of our observations included:
1. The waiting area never seemed to get free, no matter how many people were attended to.
2. The nurses sometimes had to walk to doctors to hand over updates to a patient file.
3. When a violent emergency happens, files got misplaced because all hands need to be on deck
After getting an understanding of existing information, I conducted user interviews with hospital staff - nurses and on-call doctors and I was able draw some insights
1. 80% of the participants admitted to having to refill a form because it got damaged
2. 30% of doctors mentioned they had received information of a patient that they were not treating and didn’t need access to.
3. 90% of nurses mentioned that they sometimes find it hard to keep track of patient location
The research analysis phase was able to provide clarity which led to the development of the ideal persona for the patient intake flow. Because there were multiple aspects of this project that multiple people were responsible for, this persona is not extensive and covers only the basics
This was a large product with various interactions. The information architecture for this site was necessary to help everyone keep track of possible interactions within the platform. And to guide design decisions
Based on the information architecture of the website, it was easier to design the pages within each section of the system. In this case, I was assigned to the intake section.
The wireframes were tested with some hospital staff and insights were gathered through observation and feedback. Some of these are:
1. Nurses kept checking the time to know who was onboard and how long ago the shift change was.
2. Nurses and doctors wanted to see medications and existing conditions without having to search and click through multiple pages.
3. The intake form did not ask if patients were on any medication.
4. Rather than making it just a button, nurses wanted view ICE name and number at first glance These insights were pivotal to some of the changes implemented in the high fidelity designs.
After iterations, the wireframes were developed into high fidelity designs using accessible colours, easy to read and understand texts as well as content that signed with the web content accessibility guidelines.
After the development, the project was introduced to hospital branches in phases, and although the first few branches had a bit of a learning curve. By the end of their first month after the transition, there were zero cases of missing files. The average waiting time per person went from 45 minutes to 20 minutes by the second month.
