Patient Care Summary

Owned a 0–1 patient summary experience, surfacing live clinical insights and unifying fragmented data to reduce clicks by 85% and increase NPS by 88 points.

Company

Role

Year

DaVita

Design Lead

2023 - 2025

The Challenge

Fragmented data & inefficient workflows

Preparing to contact patients & providing care was a daily obstacle for Registered Nurses (RNs). The patient's chart, containing critical information, was fragmented across many pages within Cerner's EHR.

What should have been a simple task to prepare for patient outreach devolved into fact finding missions requiring significant time & effort.

"Everybody documents in a different way…"

"I use an Excel spreadsheet or Word doc to stay on target…"

Lack of Centralized Data

Critical information like discharge summaries & care plans, were spread across the chart—making it difficult for nurses to get a holistic view.

Excessive Clicks

RNs spent 60-70 clicks per patient, supplemented with handwritten notes & personal tracking systems to stay organized.

Inconsistent Documentation

Without standardized documentation practices in place, information was recorded in various formats, complicated care preparation.

The Design Approach

A unified patient care summary

We set out to build a future where RNs didn't need to chase data and instead are free to focus on patient care. To get there, we pursued a SMART on FHIR solution that would consolidate critical information into a single view.

Co-creation allowed us to define a product roadmap that would span more than a year of iteration of design & development. It ensured the Patient Care Summary was scalable & built to support clinical outcomes with team alignment.

Initial Layout Wireframes

Grounding design in real user needs

To build a truly meaningful product, we needed to understand the system and the people navigating it.

Rather than treating user interviews as isolated sessions, I used them to build a living foundation for continuous discovery. I transformed raw insights into interview snapshots. The artifacts became core tools for prioritization, iteration, & knowledge sharing throughout the project.

Registered Nurse

Quick Facts

ESKD RN

Telehealth

Experience (5+ years)

Cerner Only

"If I don't have the discharge summary before making contact, I'm going to do a deep dive and try to get information—it means a lot to my patients."

Insights

Discharge summary information determines effecitiveness of patient contact

Uses excel sheet to keep track of information not readily available within system

Opportunities

Provide single click entry to discharge summary information during hospitalization

Capture most important information to prepare for patient contact

Interview snapshots help build knowledge for the team.

Typical Workflow

As the audit concluded, I cross referenced product's backlog priorities with usability enhancements. Then, I created an impact matrix to create the design roadmap for the project.

To ensure the roadmap was solidified and the impact-effort dynamic was accurate, I collaborated with engineering to co-create the early stages of the application.

Workflow maps help to identify friction and gaps for the user.

Helping patients on their journey

Helping patients transition to dialysis or prepare for kidney transplant is among the most complex & critical responsibilities in kidney care. For care teams using Cerner, the process was reliant on scattered data, disconnected third-party approvals, and no clear picture of patient progress.

RNs were left piecing together information manually, unable to readily answer the most important question—Where is the patient in their kidney care journey, and what's next?

The business wanted to improve patient preparedness and clinicians wanted clarity. The challenge was to bridge those needs by surfacing real-time information within the Patient Care Summary that made complex workflows simple.

Constraints

The constraints included a nonlinear patient journey, third party milestones, and a fixed positioning within the page.

Flexible UI

I needed to design a UI component that felt narrative-focused, flexible, & clinical at the same time.

I explored PrimeNG’s available components, but quickly realized that none offered the flexibility we needed.

Dynamic Timeline

The timeline adapts to patient data volume, accommodates nonlinear milestones & approvals, and provides in-line actions to take next steps.

Loved

The card quickly became one of the most loved elements of the Patient Care Summary.

It provides a visual understanding of each patient's path and made previously invisible progress points actionable.

The Solution

Transforming patient care

Working with a clear product vision & grounded in user insights, I led the design of the Patient Care Summary—a unified, actionable workspace that consolidated critical patient data and tasks onto a single, streamlined page.

We set out to reframe the experience around how RNs process their work while prioritizing patient care. Over the course of the year, every design decision was guided by our values via a simple question: How might we help nurses spend less time navigating a legacy EHR & spend more time building meaningful relationships with their patients?

Centralized Data

We streamlined over 60 clicks into a single view, surfacing the most relevant patient details informing RNs to provide care.

Localized Workflow Actions

I compressed time to value on the interface by introducing embedded powerforms & designed a sidebar to ensure local task completion.

Clear Information Hierarchy

Alongside product partners, we conducted rolling user interviews to ensure the most important data surfaced as the right times.

Solution Quickview

Results

The initial designs for the Patient Care Summary went live in Q2 2024, with new capabilities added monthly. According to feedback from users, each addition provides immense value in helping the RNs prepare for patient contact to provide quality care. In total, we've reduced preparation for patient contact from 50-60 clicks to less than 10.

+88

Point increase in Net Promoter Score