Hard Lessons Learned:

• In the realm of healthcare, poor user experience (UX) can have devastating consequences, leading to severe medical errors and even fatalities. This often stems from technology ill-suited to user needs, causing usability issues, treatment delays, misinformation, and inaccurate procedures.
• The healthcare industry’s sluggish adoption of new technologies results in outdated systems that are difficult to navigate and comprehend. This issue is further compounded by the high costs of specialized medical software, potentially trapping healthcare organizations with poorly designed systems for extended periods.
• There are real-world examples of poor UX leading to tragic outcomes, such as patients being sent to the wrong operating room due to poorly designed patient ID wristbands, or a child dying because nurses couldn’t accurately interpret information from complex charting software. These incidents underscore the urgent need for UX improvement in healthcare.

What is Poor UX?

It’s when technology fails to align with user needs. The sad truth is that healthcare is a field often plagued by such poor UX.

Healthcare UX issues impact our lives more profoundly and personally than most other sectors.

Specialized medical software tends to be a niche, often conservative and slow-moving field. Generally, when a healthcare organization purchases an EHR (Electronic Health Record) system—and these systems often cost millions of dollars—if that system ships with little regard for usability, they’re stuck with the poor UX for the system’s lifespan. There’s no easy escape.

But that’s the crux of the matter. Healthcare is a field where poor usability isn’t just an inconvenience—it can lead to serious medical errors and tragic outcomes.

When was the last time you visited a hospital, and did you notice the technology they were using? It certainly varies by region, but chances are it was older and less capable than the systems you use at home.

Every year, we see remarkable technological advancements, but these often take a long time to permeate the healthcare system. They seem to be stuck.

When Poor UX Hurts

Besides being stuck with outdated technology, systems with poor UX can cause harm. This is precisely what happened to Toi Valentine, the daughter of an emergency room physician and a nurse, whose parents wanted her to follow their medical path but who ultimately defied family expectations, moving to New York City to become an interior designer.

During summers, Toi often worked at a ski resort in Oregon. One summer, Toi unfortunately had a skiing accident where she landed on her back on the edge of a ski track, leading her to the local hospital.

Poor UX feelings became apparent as Toi entered the chaotic emergency room. Toi gradually concluded that the people there didn’t know their roles or how to interact with her as a patient. She eventually ended up in the operating room for surgery instead of going to the X-ray department for basic X-rays.

Toi realized that such mistakes weren’t human errors, but design errors.

For instance, it was the poor design of the patient ID wristband that led to Toi being taken to the wrong operating room. Poor spatial design and planning also caused treatment delays as staff ran back and forth to fetch supplies.

This story led Toi to a new career as a UX designer. She realized that design isn’t just about making things look pretty but also about understanding user needs and behaviors.

It’s clear that the broken UX that failed Toi was entirely unnecessary.

When Poor UX Takes Lives

Jonathan Shariat’s wife, a nursing student, shared Jonathan’s passion for technology in healthcare. However, her teacher had a contrary opinion and shared her story.

The patient’s real name wasn’t mentioned but was named Jenny for the sake of the story.

Jenny, a young girl, had been treated for cancer for the past four years and had been discharged. Unfortunately, she relapsed and needed very strong chemotherapy.

After the medication was administered, three nurses went to the charting software, where they entered the necessary data and issued the appropriate orders.

Those nurses, each with over 10 years of experience, simply overlooked a critical piece of information. Jenny was supposed to receive intravenous hydration for 3 days. Unfortunately, the nurses struggled to understand and respond to the software interface.

Jenny died of toxicity and dehydration. She missed hydration for two shifts. Why? Because the nurses couldn’t interpret the information provided by the system.

Examples

So, what do these user interfaces look like? The first screenshot below shows a system similar to the one Jonathan’s wife uses daily. The other two interfaces are typical of those used daily by hospital staff.

Conclusion

We all encounter poor UX in our daily journeys, but when this impacts our health and well-being—as in the cases above—the issue must be taken more seriously.

It’s hard to read the two stories above without feeling emotional. I also suspect that there are many similar untold bad UX stories that we never hear.

What solutions or steps do you think need to be taken regarding this issue? Have you or someone you know been affected by poor UX? Share your story with us.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Bad UX in Healthcare

• What are common examples of bad UX in healthcare?
• How does bad UX affect patient care?
• What are the key principles of good UX design in healthcare?
• How can healthcare providers improve their UX design?
• What are the benefits of good UX design in healthcare?
• What are the challenges of implementing good UX design in healthcare?
• How does bad UX design affect healthcare professionals?
• Can bad UX design lead to medical errors?
• How can UX design contribute to digital health innovation?
• What is the role of a UX designer in healthcare?

By Abder-Rahman Ali

Physician and author focused on leveraging machine/deep learning and image processing in medical image analysis.

 

The article is rewritten from SitePoint.