RESEARCH & STRATEGY
Improving the in-office experience for clinician users of an epilepsy treatment and monitoring software
The Context: Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy is a medical treatment that involves stimulating the vagus nerve with electrical impulses to treat epilepsy. This treatment has proven to significantly improve the quality of life for patients for whom medication has been ineffective.
The VNS treatment system is composed of four pieces of hardware which communicate with the app software and vice versa:
The implantable hardware
The generator: the device that holds the battery and sends signals to the vagus nerve in the neck through the lead. These signals help to reduce the number and length of seizures.
The lead: a thin wire that connects the generator to the vagus nerve.
The monitoring hardware
The programming wand: used to interrogate the implanted generator and access data
The clinician tablet: used to visualize data collected by generator and adjust treatment as needed.
The software:
The Clinician App: Accessed via the tablet and allows clinicians to monitor feedback data and adjust treatment as necessary.
The Problem: Field clinical specialists at LivaNova, responsible for guiding and supporting the use of VNS devices in clinical settings, reported that clinicians were dissatisfied with the time required to find, analyze, and adjust data on the Clinician App during patient appointments.
The Objective: The UX team was tasked with identifying and addressing pain points clinicians faced while using the Clinician App during appointments in order to user satisfaction.
The Outcomes:
Improved User Satisfaction: 41.67% Increase in reported User Satisfaction
Time-on-Task Savings: Projected 4 minutes of precious appointment time saved
Error Rate Reduction: Anticipated 100% reduction in error rates
New Feature Development: Catalyst for the development of new Bluetooth feature
Project Type
B2B
Company
LivaNova
Methods
Task-Based Usability Testing
Contextual Observations
A/B Testing
Role
UX Researcher and Design Strategist
Timeline
8 weeks; June-Aug. 2022
Project Timeline
The UX team worked within an 8 week timeline to deliver actionable insights.
Team
The 3-person UX Research team worked cross-functionally across other Clinician App teams to drive the project forward.
Setting the Project Scope and Research Planning
The project scope was set collaboratively as a result of feedback from Field Clinician Specialists, who reported users were having difficulties using the App while in appointments with patients.
Determining Methods
I worked collaboratively with the broader UX team to define the appropriate methods suited to best answer our research questions. We then worked with the client services team to recruit clinicians willing to provide feedback. Understanding how the App was using in the appointment setting was crucial, but constraints dictated that the team be limited to only observational studies as opposed to contextual inquiries.
For this reason, we combined Task-Based Usability Testing with Observational Studies to ensure we were collecting enough qualitative data.
Conducting Task-Based Usability Testing
The clinicians were given a series of tasks to complete on the app. The participant then spoke about what aspect of the task was difficult for them and also gave each task a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score).
Conducting Contextual Observations
The team also observed 30 minute appointments during which the clinician would use the wand to interrogate the implanted generator, interpret the data via the Clinician App, and adjust treatment as necessary. Time on task was measured for the Interrogation and Titration tasks while the error rate was recorded for Checking Parameters.
Share Out and Collaborating with Design on Improvements
We shared the research findings with the Clinician App product, engineering, and design teams. We then worked closely with design to develop and iterate on improvements for the target flows.
Conducting A/B Testing
We returned to the same clinicians to conduct A/B testing in order to measure CSAT improvement and gather additional qualitative data.
Securing Buy-in for Further Development and Outcomes
