Google Care helps caregivers collaborate with medical teams to manage their loved one's changing needs, improve quality of care and improve health outcomes.
It was the result of a 24-hour hackathon hosted by Google Health and BrainStation.
Brief
Building on a data set Google provided, we were challenged to create a solution that increases accessibility to healthcare.
We reviewed the data and found a need to improve the experience of caregivers managing the health of loved ones living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Solution
Google Care is a cloud-based iOS app that connects caregivers and medical teams to improve communication, promote collaboration, and track the evolving needs of patients living with Alzheimer’s to help maintain their quality of life.
Process
Brainstorm and Analysis
Our team reviewed the data and brainstormed individually before meeting to pitch ideas. We debated the strongest concepts and agreed there was a tremendous opportunity to address the needs of caregivers.
Our data scientists broke off to work their magic and returned with insights to help us understand our user needs and define our design process.
Design
We started our design process by creating a proto persona from our data insights. This helped anchor our design process and maintain our focus on user needs.
Mary Beth
Age: 65
Gender: Woman
Ethnicity: White
Marital Status: Married
Salary: $50,000 USD
Location: Sacramento, California
Mary Beth is the primary caregiver for her mother, who lives with Alzheimer’s disease. Her mother’s health has started deteriorating, so she and her siblings are meeting with a care provider to determine if they should transition her into an assisted living facility.
Pain Points
• I don't have consistent communication with my siblings and the medical team.
• I don’t know if my mom’s health is deteriorating over time.
• It’s hard to stay on top of my mom’s medical and personal needs.
Behaviours
• I am my mom's primary care provider at home.
• I collaborate with my siblings and the medical team to manage my mom's health.
• I manage my mom’s medical, financial, and personal needs.
Motivations
• I love my mom and feel responsible for her well-being and happiness.
• I want to keep mom at home until she needs care that I can’t offer.
User Stories
We wrote user stories from Mary Beth’s perspective and identified four epics: tracking, connect, tasks, and delight, and designed a solution to address these needs.
Features
Communication
Problem
It is difficult to maintain consistent communication between caregiver networks and medical teams, making it hard to track patient health.
Solution
The dashboard gives stakeholders the ability to share patient information and maintain a record of patient activity.
Monitoring & Collaborating
Problem
With ever-changing patient needs and a diverse team of caregivers, it is difficult to monitor a patient's condition accurately.
Solution
The Incident Tracker allows all care team members to record notes about a patient's condition and stay up to date.
Solution
Our solution gives care teams a tool to connect, communicate, and support each other while they support their loved ones.
Our walkthrough follows Mary Beth as she receives a notification that her brother added to the tracker. Her mother had an incident, and Mary Beth decides its time for her and her siblings to talk to her mother's doctor about moving into assisted living.
She updates a calendar appointment to inform the rest of the care team about the developments.
Reflection
Strength in numbers
I love working with data scientists—their ability to condense information and produce meaningful insights expedited our design process significantly.
We collaborated to define our direction and then divided up tasks to work quickly, take advantage of our strengths, and produce great results.