Emily Jin

J&J Patient Mobile Portal

A telehealth solution to improve patient's clinical trial experience at Johnson & Johnson.

My Role

UX Designer

Project

Sponsored by J&J and The New School

Timeline

5 months (2022)

Tools Used

Figma, Mural

Overview

My Role

I was responsible for user research, user interviews, journey mapping, and prototyping. Everyone participated throughout the overall research, and user interview process.

Design Process

Understand

Research

Analyze

Design

Presentation

Research

Industry Status Quo

Traditional clinical trials were initially developed around scientific advancement, mainly serving healthcare practitioners and pharmaceutical companies without putting patients at the center. The problem is switching the industry and practitioners' mindset to a patient-centric approach.

Institution-centric

vs.

Patient-centric

Interview with Industry Experts

We encountered challenges in recruiting clinical trial participants for interviews on short notice. Instead, I interviewed three industry experts from J&J who bring years of experience with clinical trial patients. Their insights effectively captured and summarized the experiences of multiple patients, which integrated perfectly into our synthesis.

Kafayat Babajide

Associate Director in Investigator and Patient Experience

“Patients may have a lot on their plates, so some of them would withdraw before completion. And it costs much more to recruit another one”

Alyson Gregg

Director, Patient Insights at Innovative Medicine

“Many patients never know what’s happening in a trial ”

Neela Kumar

Associate Director Patient Engagement Research Council for Bladder Cancer

“Different kinds of patients have various expectations for clinical trials. Some seek participation, others seek treatments”

Research Insights

J&J has difficulties on recruiting patients and retention for clinical trials.

86% of clinical trials do not reach recruitment targets within their specified time period.

Many patients don’t know about what happens in a trial and can’t understand the complex process in technical terms.

Patients are more like lab rats rather than important stakeholders.

Patients have varied expectations when participating in clinical trials.

Trials not meeting patients’ expectations may lead to high dropouts.

Analyze

Pain Points

Patients don’t know what happens in a trial

Patients don’t understand the complex trial process

Not meeting patient’s expectations for a trial

J&J

Low recruitment + high dropouts in a trial

Challenge

Problem Statement

How might we

enhance the clinical trial experience to boost patient recruitment and reduce dropout rates for J&J?

Service Ideation

Support Patients throughout a Trial

Onboarding: Clinical trial guide

Connect with primary doctors for explanations throughout trials

Let physicians learn patients’ expectations in advance

J&J

Boost recruitment + reduce dropouts

Prototype

Final Design

Pain Point 1: Patients don’t know what happens in a trial

Onboarding: Clinical trial guide

Pain Point 2: Patients don’t understand the complex trial process

Connect with primary doctors and learn trial progress

Pain Point 3: Not meeting patient’s expectations for a trial

Let physicians learn patient’s expectations in advance

Presentation

Feedback from J&J

We received positive feedback from the J&J team for the final presentation. Although we didn't have enough time to conduct user testing, our client was happy with the delivery and said the application would alleviate patients' burden in the trial process.

“ It has been a great experience working with you and seeing how you find the right problem to solve ”

Reflection

Takeaway

My team initially struggled with having difficulties of finding patients to interview. We have tried to reach out to relevant institutions and online communities but received no response within a limited time. But we found interview podcasts from Trial Talks, webinars, and J&J professionals to approach the problem from industry pain points.