Inspiration
Sharing the real perspective, the whole story, a day-by-day breakdown of a patient’s lifestyle doesn’t always occur in a healthcare setting. So how is a patient’s story told to get the best care possible? Round Robin. For the 72 year-old Chinese woman who can’t speak English, for the scared man who conceals the severity of his symptoms, for the manipulative patient who tries to increase his dosage - this web application is a tell-all for what goes on outside of the doctor’s office. For loved ones who know how the patient really feels after s/he leaves the clinic and for the care team who wants to stay connected and informed - this app brings everyone together and allows them to share feedback on the patient based on their interactions with him/her.
How it works
Alluringly sleek, intuitively straightforward, and invitingly useful, Round Robin goes beyond just a pretty interface. To open the doors to the magical world of 360-degree evaluation of a loved one, all it takes is for the primary caregiver (appropriately dubbed Batman throughout this submission) to create an account for the patient. Batman can invite friends and family to participate by using the super special invitation code generated specifically in reference to each patient. The physician is loaded along with supporting medical staff. Once someone logs in, they instantly see a dashboard of existing data and can easily add a new entry (aka new feedback). Busy medical professionals (especially those superstar doctors) can simply answer three general questions about how a patient is doing and optionally provide a quick note for each answer. For the loved ones with more time, someone who loves providing extensive narrative accounts, or someone who loves using beautifully coded forms, they can answer additional questions catered more specifically to the patient and condition.
True to the name, the patient's loving circle of care uses a round robin style of reporting to provide a 360-degree view of the patient's patterns. Well, for the medical staff, its 360-degrees because they see all submitters and all content. Friends can’t see anything beyond their own submission. Batman fully sees what the medical staff has written, and can only see which friends and family members have submitted (but not content). Perhaps that means Batman has a 270-degree view. After all, no friend wants Mrs. Wilson to hear about their shenanigans with her son.
Challenges I ran into
Have you ever built out a fully functional application in a day? Neither can we, but we came pretty close. There is a golden spot between dumbingly basic and information overload. It was difficult to achieve this ideal level of presenting just enough information while not rendering the app useless by being too simple. Balancing the needs of our user group and the wishes of all was incredibly difficult. That’s what Santa told me, anyways. Regardless of what Kris Kringle thinks, we tried to remedy this by retaining enough content to extract the gist of each individual's evaluation and added dropdown menus and pop-ups for additional relevant information.
We also considered who sits at the center of this app. After much deliberation, Batman does. Anyone who has communicated with medical staff and can confirm their relationship with the patient can be Batman - including you. Yes, you can be Batman. Another question we pondered - how do we “leave the user wanting more”? By making the app easy-to-use and so incredibly useful that the user can’t wait to come back and add another entry on their loved one’s progress. Try the app out - we think you’ll be back soon.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We are a superstar pack of four and we fully leveraged everyone's talents on the team to create a bomb diggity product. Our suite of skills includes web development, design, strategy, workflows and persona creation, ideation, needfinding, and UX/UI...what can’t we do? We amplified a compelling idea and created it completely from scratch. Call us sappy fuzzballs, but we’re proud of creating a synergistic team vibe and producing a final product that we’re 100% passionate about and excited to show off.
What I learned
There are many individuals involved in a patient's care. Everyone and their mother can interact with the patient - literally! We made this app knowing that everyone and their mother needed the ability to participate in evaluating and provide feedback on their interaction with the patient. We also learned the importance of a personal connection with a product. At some point, everyone will be a patient and/or take care of a loved one who is a patient. Making this product something that we and our families would use kept us going.
What's next for Round Robin
Big things! Round Robin goes beyond this codeathon. This impromptu team has pulled together this project completely from scratch in less than 24 hours. Once well-rested and with less strenuous time constraints, we’re taking this idea back to Kaiser. We’ll attempt to implement it with existing care coordination platforms like ParkinsonNet and integrate it into Kaiser’s strong IT and clinical infrastructure. We’re KP-IT gurus, so that won’t be a problem. This app can bring together patient-based care, disease management, and a circular support group. We have high hopes and high energy - watch out for us.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.