How we helped to develop more impactful digital health services to assist patients in managing their disease

The challenge

Our client was developing concepts for patients who use digital healthcare solutions and wanted to gauge reactions to each of them to determine the most important features to include in a patient app.

The solution

To understand patients’ interests, concerns and influencing factors over the concepts in development, we conducted qualitative telephone-depth interviews with a number of patients suffering from a chronic condition.

Discussions were structured to identify how each patient felt about managing their chronic condition. This enabled us to classify the respondents under two categories; namely ‘struggler’ and ‘self-care enthusiast’. In addition to this, the discussions not only allowed us to explore the patient journey, but also assess how concepts rank overall/relative to each other. Consequently, this allowed us to determine the most important features among all concepts, and desired features to add.

The outcomes

Final strategic recommendations were developed by considering all elements of the research. We provided our client with a report comparing patient journeys and different concepts, helping them to understand:

How to easily manage lifestyle challenges

• We provided recommendations which could be realistically implemented, making their condition less intrusive
• We identified which patient categories are most likely to use an app to overcome the everyday challenges of their chronic condition

How to build customizable app around most popular concepts

• We identified which top 4 concepts need to be easily navigated through the app
• We provided in-app customization insights

Which features resonate best with patients

• We provided recommendations on the design elements and cross-app integration
• We identified concerns on imported data
• We suggested ways to instill the element of trust amongst patients using the app

Find out more about our experience in Digital Health