Open Admissions

Redesigning an inefficient interface into an intuitive workflow hub. Users reduced task time by 30%, earned an industry leading 35 NPS score.

Company

Role

Year

DaVita

Design Lead

2022 - 2023

The Challenge

An outdated interface slowing patient care

The Open Admissions Smartapp (OAS) was initially intended to feed data into clinical workflows, leaving the user interface disconnected from real-world workflows. The tool forced Integrated Kidney Care Assistants (IKCAs), who support Registered Nurses (RNs) in patient outreach, into inefficient workflows.

Rather than empowering IKCAs to easily prioritize & contact patients, the interface concealed critical information. The result was a greater degree of friction, slower outreach, and less time spent on providing patient care.

"I can't organize calls because patient list has no logic. "

"It takes half a day to complete my contacts & make updates."

"There are far too many clicks to complete simple tasks."

Outdated Interface

Users couldn't sort patients by admission type, making it difficult to organize their workload.

Workflow Inefficiency

The system did't surface high-priority patients, forcing users to "hunt" through records to identify who needed attention first.

Time Constraints

Completing simple daily tasks required a multi-step process, often preventing users from finishing work on time.

Existing Open Admissions App - Patient Data Not Available for Privacy Reasons

The First Designer

Building trust & leveraging user insight

When I joined the project, the team that had never previously worked with a designer. Clearly, the initial step was to build trust on the journey to driving meaningful change for our users.

I initiated a series of 1:1 meetings with key stakeholders with the goal was to establishing design as a strategic & collaborative partner from day one. Through these conversations, the team coalesced around user pain points, alignment on opportunities, & set the tone for a design process that drove immediate impact.

With trust established and a shared understanding of how we might approach user challenges, I conducted a holistic UX audit of the existing OAS interface. My goal was to find where friction thrived by identifying gaps between the interface and real world workflows, then map a path to clarity.

Throughout the audit process, we maintained regular communication cadence—these rituals ensured that insights moved quickly from discovery into actionable design priorities.

Audit findings

- Organizing patient populations: viewing patients by admission type allows for intuitive outreach priorities

- Clearer critical path: standardize CTA buttons to guide users effortlessly through important tasks

- Simplified filtering: reducing complexity & introduce new tools like 'Reset' and an 'Overdue' toggle

- Time to value: enabling users to complete critical updates directly in the UI

Creating priorities

To ensure design efforts were focused, I created a prioritization matrix to align the team on what mattered most based on findings from the Audit.

This allowed us to map out our work based on urgency and strategic value, ensuring early wins while paving the way for longer-term improvements.

High Impact

Low Impact

Low Effort

High Effort

Streamline completion process by consolidating save & complete sections

Increase time to value for user by facilitating relevant actions to drive patient behavior and healthier outcomes

Enable a permanently fixed column for the Treatment Options Data, reducing user's cognitive load

More clearly connect data input and treatment output data & link CTAs to specific actions for relevant data

Better connect Care Pathways to Care Plan component to better enable continuous patient care

Build a comparison pane within the application to compare current patient data entries to past patient data entries

Include tasking from within Pathways to set up action lists for other clinicians to follow up on specific patient logisitcs

Summarize previous 2-day pathways or other Care Pathways to match the selected new one in progress

Allow for required fields questions so users can see which questions are most important

Create interconnected prompts that become more or less relevant as the RN moves through the form

Enable read only fields that allow the user to better understand context for patient care

Remove the functionality for documentation off pathway or other unused features within the existing app

Separate lines for binary responses to better improve reporting data pipelines

Add a fill from form to allow an RN to upload documents like Discharge Summaries

Automate Activity Log entry that saves each conversation between RN and patients

Enhance conditional prompts based on previous pathway entries with relevant suggestions

Centering the user experience

As I conducted the audit, I explored further into the primary workflow to develop an understanding that proved crucial in designing an experience that supported the IKCAs.

The workflow map revealed two primary tasks:

-IKCAs need to make daily & meaningful contact with patients

-IKCAs need to log accurate, timely health status updates based on patient health

Workflow Map

Open Admissions Smartapp 2.0

A streamlined, intuitive experience

The redesigned OAS balanced familiarity with innovation, as we preserved core structural elements to minimize the learning curve while introducing targeted, high value improvements that made everyday tasks intuitive. We focused on surfacing critical patient information, simplifying navigation, and embedding key actions directly into workflows.

Patient Population Navigation

Previously buried within tables, admission types are now primary navigation elements, allowing IKCAs to prioritize their outreach.

Unified Style

Created a unified style for all of the components within the interface—including filters, buttons, and various type requirements in the table.

Direct Action

The split button enables users to update the activity log without leaving the page & it supports secondary actions for future innovation.

Solution Quickview

Results

The redesigned Open Admissions Smartapp launched in 2024 to a very positive reception amongst our user base.

35

NPS Score (industry standard is 0)

"My day starts off so much more organized. I love that my front page pops up and has my TOC calls and new admits already sorted for me. The search options let me breakdown my morning workflow in a way that works best for me, so there is no chaos."

"I love the addition of the Admit tab - I feel more organized each morning which makes my calls go smoother and quicker. The Activity Log button has been a huge timesaver when tracking my existing TOCs."