Client
NYS Department of Health
Role
Design & Web Development
Overview
Code a home page & subsequent informational pages, as well as create data visualizaitons for a new site.
Value Based Payment Dashboards
Overview
In 2020, NYS reached out to my company to have a set of dashboards created that would allow healthcare providers to do comparisons of their networks of patients across the state. This would also include an upload form for CSV files as well as an interactive webpage to relay information. This project was a continuation of the 2015 DSRIP program to reduce avoidable hospitalizations by 25% over 5 years.
This was a very exciting project in my career because not only would I be working as a designer on the project, but I’d also be doing all the web development for the website.
Background
The New York State Department of Health is in the process of implementing policies to reform the State’s Medicaid program, which overtime was incentivizing volume over good care. In 2015 Value Based Payments (VBP) were created in NYS to pay Medicaid providers for quality care to patients. By providing patients with education about unnecessary hospital visits and pushing for preventative care instead, providers across NYS were rewarded for keeping their patient healthy. With almost 1/3 of NYS on Medicaid, it would be saving tax payers billions of dollars over several years.
The goal of the project was to design and develop a public facing interface so that healthcare providers and plans across NYS could determine potential new Medicaid member groupings and see if certain VBP contracts were more suited for the populations they serve. Users would be able to access historical data to do “apples to apples” comparisons.
Salient was tasked with creating a graphical user interface for CSV uploads, dashboards using their proprietary Salient dashboard software, and supporting webpages with documentation. The dashboards allow for the analysis of a network’s historically attributed population, quality performance and efficiency measures, and comparison against certain benchmarks.
The Challenge
Providers with all different skill levels would be accessing these dashboards - how might we make them accessible for everyone?
Research & Requirements
We conducted interviews with stakeholders as well as current NYS Salient dashboard users that would potentially be using our new VBP dashboard product. Things that were discussed included help documentation, things users wanted to see and whether or not the website would be easy to use. As I stated as “the challenge,” I believed one of the biggest hurdles in this project would be to adapt the dashboards to the varying skill levels.
“I may not be the most technical person, but I need to be able to bring in a list of PCPs for my job.”
Some topics that stood out from the interviews included:
Ease of use
Knowledge gap
Access/Protecting Health Information
Stand Out Information
During out chats with people, what really stood out was whether or not they would be able to understand the data. In all honesty, did I understand the data as the designer?
Since the CSV file upload functionality mentioned above would allow users to bring in thousands and thousands of lines of data, it was decided that there should be a more focused way for less advanced users to access this information. If users were already nervous about understanding the data, it would also be an issue once the website was live.
The first way would be to for more advanced users to access the CSV files directly and use the contents to analyze the data. More basic users would be steered toward the dashboards, where they could upload data files, but also interact with previously designed and curated views of data.
In addition to the research we collected, there were requirements given to use by New York State:
They want all health information scrubbed so it can be published publicly
Salient would be building a GUI that exists on top of their current dashboard product
The dashboards need to include maps & geographic information, as well as data on attribution and quality measures
Working with a large governmental organization like NYS meant that there were going to be certain ways to do things. Doing user research was not a top priority for this project, instead it was simply brought to Salient and we were told to complete the project and to tell them when they could see mock ups. It didn’t allow for as much user research as I would have liked, but the stakeholder meetings and interviews with current Salient software users would have to do.
Persona
Lisa
- Age: 55
- Sex: Female
- Location: Saratoga Springs, NY
- Matial Status: Married
- Education: Master's
- Occupation: Analyst
Goals
- Lisa needs to be able to do her job first and foremost
- I want this app to be simple to use because it's another thing I need to learn to do
- I'm not the most tech saavy person, remember that!
- It would be nice if things loaded fast. I don't want to spend all day loading data
Pain Points
- When the data is not clear
- Navigating dashboards can be confusing at times
- I want the font to be legible, not too small
Lisa is a data analyst who has worked with healthcare plans across NYS for her entire career. She has experience with applications to look at data, but she isn’t the best with all the features. Ease of use is important for her since she doesn’t want to spend all day trying to learn to use a computer program.
“I love analyzing healthcare data and the discoveries I’ve made while at work, but we’re understaffed, I’m busy and can’t spend too much time learning to use new software all the time.”
Designs
Information Architecture
Once initial meetings, research and interviews were conducted, it was time to get to the best part - designs! We knew that there would a home page that users could get to from Google, or by simply putting in the URL. From the main page, users can access lots of information about the data, a glossary, a change log and support. From there they will also upload the specialty file or simple enter the dashboards.
Wireframes & Mock Ups
NYS has very stringent design rules for vendors creating products and interfaces with NYS branding. Ironically, I was an intern for NYS and helped to put together and implement the branding guidelines. Now as a designer in the private sector, it is my job to follow what I helped to put forth. This includes incorporating relevant NYS logos and using approved fonts and colors throughout.
In creating the landing page, I knew we could simply put a button on the page to let users upload CSV files and then include some explanatory text. In 2017 we created a similar page of which NYS was still very familiar. Initial mock ups showed this basic structure, but I wanted to take it to the next level and showcase my designs. A governmental organization does not need to have an outdated looking web presence, so I set out to create a sleek and modern interface.
The first low fidelity designs were created in Balsamiq to get a feel for spacing of dashboard widgets and to figure out the upload dialogue. Do we have enough data on the dashboards to provide users with the necessary information required? Some people felt this should be within the dashboard space, while others felt it shouldn’t be necessary to a user to go into the dashboard software to upload their list of providers.
Landing Page
This is the final high res mock up of the publicly available dashboard. It (will) exist inside of the NYS header and foot and be hosted through their site.
NYS Branding
Attribution Overview Dashboard
Once users are click to go into the system, they are brought to a series of dashboards which they can interact with. We included a button called “What Does This Mean?” to be very literal when people ask what things mean.
Future Use
Before we were able to begin the UAT process and receive real feedback from users, NYS put a hold on this project to focus on the Covid pandemic in 2020/2021. Beginning in 2023, we hope to start rolling out test accounts to some users across the state to get feedback and make any necessary changes.