Creative Navy Guest Blog | How UX Design Boosts Technology Adoption in Healthcare

Guest Blog by Creative Navy 

Digital innovation is transforming the face of healthcare as we know it. From wearable devices to AI algorithms, every new addition has changed the patient journey and the day-to-day of medical staff. In a sector that relies on well-established protocols to ensure predictability and a high quality of care, the latest technology can often be perceived as an unwelcome disruption. 

Change is hard. Both medical software and hardware come with distinct adoption barriers for professionals and patients alike.

On average, a medical device takes three to seven years to reach the market, undergoing multiple regulatory and quality checks before being considered ready for patient use. As healthcare technology continues to evolve, adopting the newest tools remains unnecessarily challenging. In a high-stakes environment like the hospital, there’s no room for clunkiness, frustration, or mistakes. Lives are on the line.

Successful adoption depends on how easy to use a product is and whether it truly allows medical professionals to maximize their potential. A focus on simplicity, accessibility, and workflow integration significantly improves the odds of smoother healthcare technology adoption. UX design plays a major role in making change feel more natural to the medical status quo.

A study from Communications of IIMA concluded that user experience was 1 of 3 top factors that influence device or software adoption in healthcare.

Here’s how UX design supports healthcare technology adoption, leading to better patient outcomes:

1. UX Design Simplifies Onboarding and Training 

Don’t assume that medical staff has the time to read through that giant manual of yours. Every lengthy training session you make them attend takes them away from the people who really need them, their patients. Many medical professionals work with more than one specialised device. Will yours be the hair that breaks the camel’s back? 

The bad news is that traditional onboarding is burdensome. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be. 

Time is very valuable in the healthcare sector. Great UX can minimize onboarding duration by simplifying the interface of a device to a point where it becomes instantly understandable. By relying on evidence-based, user-centred design, it’s possible to eliminate the need for training altogether. Clean, bulletproof UX relies on pre-existing patterns and follows industry standards and conventions to a T. 

Thoughtfully designed interactive tutorials or guided walkthroughs ensure that users gain proficiency fast and use less cognitive resources to do so. A well-structured onboarding experience makes the device seem more approachable. 

According to a paper published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics, even as adoption of electronic health records (EHR) has risen to up to 75% of hospitals, complaints about poor integration with clinical workflow continue. These complaints also refer to excessive time spent sifting through fragmented data and negative impact on patient-physician interaction. 

Ultimately, more efficient training ticks many boxes: medical professionals are free to see more patients, and if they have a good first impression of the devic, they’re more inclined to use it frequently. 

2. UX Design Reduces Cognitive Load 

Working in healthcare is tough: the shifts are long and intense, important decisions are often made under immense pressure, and the sound of alarms punctuates your every move. Your product can either add to the burden medical staff is already carrying, or offer them the rare gift of simplicity and predictability. 

All medical products should have intuitive interfaces. Clean, uncluttered design prioritises essential information and preserves cognitive resources for more important aspects of medical care. Reducing unnecessary visual elements helps users focus on the task at hand undistracted. According to a study done by Clutch, 94% of people rank interface simplicity as the most important feature. In high stress situations, when the risk of errors sky-rockets, an interface with best-in-class UX acts as a fail-safe. 

Moreover, consistency in UX design plays a major role in cognitive load management. Maintaining the position of elements like the back button, next button, or cancel simplifies the decision-making process for the user. By prioritising continuity in the UX design, the product helps medical staff learn how to use it at record speed. 

Healthcare professionals have also trained their minds to tune out the constant chirp of alarms, as poorly designed systems generate too many notifications, some for false positives, others for non-emergencies. Product teams can also use UX to improve their alarm systems, particularly by focusing on: 

• Alarm prioritisation based on urgency. Hierarchical alerts instantly communicate the true gravity of the situation through sounds, vibrations, and colour coding. 

• The reduction/elimination of non-essential alerts. The UX team can create a filtering system that eliminates false positives or non-actionable alarms. 

• Alarm precision improvement. Healthcare is not one size fits all. Different patients have different criteria for what constitutes a true emergency. Customisation based on patient data is best. 

• Actionable notifications that offer clear feedback. If your alarm only reads WARNING, you haven’t done much to help the user. 

• Escalation path implementation. Progressive notifications are less overwhelming than an immediate high-intensity alarm. 

Devices built with ease of use in mind are more likely to be integrated into everyday practice. UX design has a direct impact on technology acceptance. 

3. UX Design Customizes Solutions for Different Specialties 

Products intended to be used across multiple specialties should offer personalisation options. One-size-fits-all design might be cheaper, but it can also act as a major barrier to adoption. Medical professionals should be able to tailor devices to their specific workflows. Different professionals prioritise different data sets. 

4. UX Design Prioritises Accessibility 

Despite the fact that accessibility is a non-negotiable aspect of user-centric design, more often than not products fall short of the standard. According to the WHO, 1 in 6 people live with some form of disability, around 1.3 billion to paint a clearer picture. That’s a lot of alienated users! 

In order to facilitate adoption and broaden the product’s user base, accessibility must be at the core of the design process. Patient-facing software and hardware, as well as tools designed for medical specialists, should have accessible interfaces to promote safer and more inclusive healthcare practices. UX designers in the healthcare sector can build interfaces and controls that account for visual, auditory, and motor impairments. Products built by adhering to accessibility standards benefit all users, not just the ones that live with disability. 

An accessible product is in alignment with the high ethical and legal standards people expect in the medical world. Accessible design also fosters inclusivity, as it’s more likely to be adopted by large and diverse user groups. 

5. UX Design Enhances Patient Safety 

In the medical world, even minor usability issues can have grave consequences, according to a paper by Familoni and Babatunde from the Engineering Science & Technology Journal. UX design best practices include several strategies that can enhance patient safety, such as: 

• Clear visual hierarchy 

• Consistent labeling 

• Error anticipation 

• Banning automatic changes to measurement units (e.g. lbs to kg) 

• Eliminating error prone conditions 

• Automatic checks for entered data 

• Error alert system implementation 

• Offering appropriate user feedback 

UX research can also account for external factors that can influence usability, such as lighting, whether the user is wearing gloves, how they should be able to move, whether they are left-handed. When, how, and in what conditions your device will be used plays a major part in ensuring that it’s safe. 

6. UX Design Facilitates Continuous Improvement Based on User Feedback 

UX is most effective when it’s an organizational priority, not an afterthought. As a matter of fact, fixing issues during implementation is up to 6 times more expensive than addressing those same issues during the design process, according to the Systems Sciences Institute at IBM. 

7. UX Design Guarantees Mobile Compatibility for Greater Flexibility 

In our user research, we’ve also noticed that doctors working in the public healthcare sector have different needs than their colleagues in the private sector. Because more people seek treatment in the public sector, medical professionals often find themselves conducting their consultations wherever they can, even in hallways. They would benefit immensely from EHR software that is mobile-compatible. 

Well-designed, intuitive interfaces ensure that providers can quickly access and interpret critical information without cumbersome processes, thus reducing response times. As telehealth continues to expand, mobile-compatible solutions that prioritise ease of use, security, and speed are likely to become standard. UX/UI design principles should be adhered to consistently across multiple platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables.