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White Paper
Behavior Science Informs Hemodynamics Product Design
Summary
Understanding how a solution is used or not used—and why—is key to making design improvements in a new iteration. Change Healthcare’s UX designers were able to apply the behavioral science team’s findings and improve the Hemodynamics solution in vital ways in order for physicians and technicians to maximize its efficiency in collecting critical cardiology patient data.
By: Madison Shultz Behavioral Science
The Challenge: Next-Generation Product Design
Change Healthcare Cardiology Hemo™ is a monitoring system for cardiology departments that need to aggregate blood flow data, waveforms, and images in one cardiac patient record. Importantly, Hemo promotes physician efficiency by allowing physicians to complete their report before the patients leave the room and helps eliminate redundant data entry through a single integrated database for all cardiovascular procedures.
In July 2021, product leaders knew it was time to envision a nextgeneration Hemo product. The redesign effort needed to address increasing clinical demands and new technological innovation, while solving the existing and evolving needs of the customer. They asked Change Healthcare’s behavioral science team to help.
“When starting a project of this size, we knew that we needed to talk to as many users as possible, to get a high-level perspective on current workflows as well as detailed feedback on specific pain points. We wanted to do this in the most comprehensive and methodological way possible and were so excited to learn that there was an entire team in Change Healthcare to do just that!” said Or Mendelevich, senior product manager.
What is behavioral science?
Behavioral science is the study of human behavior. It’s a mix of psychology, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, and economics.
Behavioral science uses observation, focus groups, interviews, surveys, and experimentation. Through this data-driven, humancentered approach, behavioral science helps uncover what people have done in the past and tries to try to predict—and often change—how they will behave in the future.
The Solution: Reducing the High Effort and Cost of Customization
To get a better understanding of current customer needs and pain points, the behavioral science team interviewed Change Healthcare team members who support the product alongside a wide array of customers—physicians, technicians, nurses, and administrators. In total, the insights of 33 participants from six health systems were collected and synthesized.
Throughout both rounds of research, the most common comment was, “Hemo is great when everything is set up and working like it should be.” Both team members and customers referenced the high level of customization Hemo required to be valuable. It would often take teams weeks of configuration and constant updates to reach the product’s full potential.
However, since physicians and technicians were busy tending to patient care and complex cardiac procedures, customization was often left unfinished due to the time and energy required to review the plethora of customizable options. This surfaced a huge behavioral opportunity.
By listening to key stakeholders, we’re able to bring new features to market that will have a notable impact on the way health systems operate By listening to key stakeholders, we’re able to bring new features to market that will have a notable impact on the way health systems operate.
-Or Mendelevich
Design Thinking: The Psychological Effects of Over-Customization
In the world of product design, customization has become the new standard. Often positioned to address unique needs, giving customers the option to customize can help them feel in control. However, too many options or customizable features presents product teams with a new design challenge—choice overload.
Choice overload is the phenomenon associated with the negative psychological, emotional, and behavioral effects of having too many options; and it has become a significant problem, especially for products in the clinical space.
On the surface, it may seem obvious why choice overload is a problem. Decisions are harder to make and the act of making the decision can leave people feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, or even result in no choice being made at all.
Moreover, clinical settings are dynamic, high-stress, high-performance environments. These environmental factors render doctors and clinical technicians (those who operate Hemo systems) even more susceptible to an overload of options or customizable features.
The Results: Iterative Testing of 19 Behaviorally Informed, User-Centric Concepts
Equipped with synthesized customer insights, the product team and behavioral science team began concept ideation. To combat the effects of choice overload, the cross-organizational team came up with concepts aimed at making the product feel familiar and easy to use without the high configuration effort. The team produced 19 full-fledged concepts that have each undergone iterative testing with customers.
This case study ultimately highlights one of Change Healthcare’s core beliefs—our customers are the key to designing truly valuable products. When we connect and co-design with our customers, we can have a remarkable impact. We can build better products, help improve patient outcomes, and, ultimately, transform the healthcare industry—one behavior at a time.
As we look at completely revamping our Hemo product, we want to be sure that we are designing and building a product that not only speaks to our customers’ current pain points, but that is future looking as well and keeps providing value for many years. Working with the behavioral science research team on this ensured that all our improvements and changes to the product were grounded in what we heard from our users and will have a measurable impact on our current users’ workflow as well as future business.
-Tamara Wiesen, UX designer
