CareSync

Presentation link: https://canva.link/nm4irv8mrtfbpzr

Inspiration

Recovering from an injury or illness is already difficult enough. Navigating disability benefits shouldn't make it harder.

When someone takes time away from work to recover, they're often balancing physical limitations, financial uncertainty, family responsibilities, and the emotional weight of an unexpected life change. Yet the disability claims process introduces another responsibility: coordinating paperwork and information between themselves, their employer, their healthcare provider, and their insurer.

We focused on Daniel, a 34-year-old warehouse employee and new father recovering from a back injury. After submitting his portion of a disability claim, Daniel is left wondering whether his employer or healthcare provider has submitted theirs. He doesn't know what's missing, who's responsible, or whether there's anything he can do to move the process forward.

What stood out to us wasn't just the lack of visibility. It was the expectation that someone recovering from a disability should also be responsible for navigating a process that depends on multiple parties outside their control.

This led us to our central question:

How might we reduce the burden of disability claim coordination by making status, ownership, and next steps clear and actionable?

We wanted to design an experience that puts the claimant first, respects their circumstances, and gives them back a sense of clarity and control.

What it does

Care Coordination Hub simplifies the disability claims experience by bringing essential information into one accessible, easy-to-understand space.

Our solution focuses on four questions:

Status: Where is my claim?

Ownership: Who's responsible for outstanding information?

Consequences: How does this affect my claim?

Next steps: What do I actually need to do?

Through a centralized dashboard, claimants can see which documents have been received, what's missing, and who's responsible for the next step.

Instead of repeatedly contacting employers, healthcare providers, or insurers, users can access clear guidance and meaningful progress updates. Most importantly, the hub distinguishes between actions requiring their attention and those already being handled by others.

Our goal isn't simply to track paperwork. It's to reduce uncertainty and give people more space to focus on recovery.

How we built it

We approached this challenge through a human-centred UX and service design process.

Starting with Daniel's persona, we mapped his disability claims journey to identify administrative, cognitive, emotional, and financial burdens, particularly while waiting for missing information.

We researched Canadian disability claims processes, administrative challenges faced by healthcare providers, and existing approaches to claim communication and tracking.

These insights shaped our design principles: make information digestible, responsibility visible, and next actions clear.

From there, we developed a proposed experience centred on claim progress, document status, responsibility tracking, and contextual guidance, while considering accessibility, privacy, and integration with existing insurance systems.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was designing for a process involving multiple stakeholders with different responsibilities and access to information.

We had to consider how to provide transparency without compromising sensitive medical information or increasing administrative work for healthcare providers and employers.

We also recognized that a conventional progress tracker wouldn't fully address Daniel's frustration. Knowing that a document is missing isn't enough if he still doesn't know who's handling it or whether he needs to act.

This pushed us to rethink our initial concept, shifting from tracking claim progress to clarifying responsibility and reducing unnecessary effort.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of designing around the person behind the claim, rather than treating disability benefits as just an administrative process.

One of our most meaningful insights was that not every outstanding task should become another responsibility for the claimant.

By focusing on clear ownership, accessible communication, and actionable guidance, we developed a concept that aims to reduce both practical and emotional burdens.

What we learned

This challenge taught us that effective UX design goes beyond improving individual screens. Sometimes, the deeper problem lies in how information and responsibility move between people and systems.

We also learned that accessibility isn't only about usability. It's about recognizing that someone navigating a disability claim may be managing pain, stress, fatigue, and financial uncertainty.

Most importantly, we learned that a good solution shouldn't simply shift administrative work from one person to another. It should reduce unnecessary friction across the entire experience.

What's next for Care Coordination Hub

Future opportunities include proactive notifications, coordinated follow-up support, and extending the experience to long-term disability and return-to-work transitions.