Livefully

Holistic Post-transplant Care Service

Duration

Feb. 2020 - Jun. 2020

Role

Lead Designer

Team

Cate Tompkins: Ethnographic/Design Researcher
Anirban Ghosh: Tech Lead

Brief

Livefully is a holistic care platform created to promote a better quality of life for patients after their hospital discharge from transplant surgeries. It provides four main features: Patient Journal, Medication Adherence Tool, Dietary guide, and Community Engagement Space.

We were resident at Harvard ILab and raised pre-seed funding.

Problem

Almost 14,000 patients are on the waiting list for a liver transplant in the US, and the numbers are growing each year.

Many of the causes of hospital readmission may be preventable through early identification & outpatient management.

of liver transplant recipients self-reported nonadherence to clinical appointments

47 %

of liver transplant recipients self-reported nonadherence to immunosuppression drugs

15-40%

This simplified version of the current patient journey shows when and what support is needed by patients.

1.Complicate Patient Journey

2.Underserved Post Acute Care

46% of liver transplant recipients were readmitted to the hospital within 90 days of surgery

Deeper-Dive into Problems

“Recovery period is more significant than other surgeries, and everybody’s journey is different. However, it is hard to provide individualized recovery care.”

Transplant Center Director

“I had to write down what doctors were saying on a piece of paper...It is very confusing.”

Transplant Recipient

When interviewing a transplant patient, a caregiver, and many clinicians, we realized post-transplant life is very complicated.

  • Post-hospitalization treatment is even more complicated

  • No standardized post-care and information resources

  • The success of the recipients' follow-up care depends on the initiative of the recipient and caregiver

  • Online support groups and nonprofit organizations give immense support

  • Not many have full-time caregivers

Hypothesis

We hypothesize that by addressing reasons for preventable hospital readmissions and lower reported quality of life, we can improve post-transplant outcomes. By providing physical and digital toolkits to help with the nitty-gritty details of the post-transplant care, we aim to:

1. Improve transparency in post-transplant care protocol, thereby

2. Increase care adherence among the liver transplant cohort, which in turn

3. Improves hospital readmission rates and long-term survival outcomes.

Solution

Intoducing Livefully

We designed Livefully to be holistic and right-on with the understanding that
there are different individual priorities at each point in time after transplant and complexities in maintaining healthy lifestyles.

Livefully consists of four services and tools:

Service Flow:

Digital Community

The digital community is designed to create a sense of belonging among patients. It helps patients connect with individuals for emotional support and share tips; therefore, they can have strong peer support for a healthy life journey.

Design Considerations:

  • Accessibility Compliance: Given that a large portion of our users are over 50, we made design choices to comply with ADA and WCAG guidelines, including larger fonts and minimal icon use.

  • New Patient Support: For new patients unfamiliar with medical terms, we aggregated popular topics as suggestions to help them get started.

Patient Journal

After hospital discharge or with a chronic disease condition, there are many things to take care of and be cautious about including medication schedules, side effect tracking, healthy meal plans, and so on. They are so easy to forget or track down.

Design considerations:

  • To ease the process of logging daily health metrics, we integrated a voice-to-text feature, which is especially beneficial for older adults.

  • To streamline appointment management and booking accommodations, the service is connected to calendar apps and ride-sharing apps.

  • Recognizing the significant role of caregivers in the recovery journey, we made it easier to share information with the user's consent.

  • All logs are easy to view at a glance, organized in chronological order.

Responsive to various screens. For the older demographic, our research found that tablets are more effective as they can display larger text.

Medication Adherence Tool

The medication regime dictated for various diseases can be overwhelming for users.

To simplify it, we abstract the clinical information into shapes and colors.

When the medication needs to be taken, the user will receive an alarm on their smartphone reminding them to take a particular medicine based on the shape and color of the sticker.

Design considerations:

  • To address the difficulty of taking multiple medicines with similar bottles and small text names, we added tactile identification stickers.

  • We ensured the use of distinctive colors for easy differentiation.

  • Minimal text was used throughout the UI to reduce confusion.

Design Process

Design Principle

We apply the principles of universal design to approach this project. Recognizing access to quality care as a privilege, we ensure that our service is accessible to older adults, individuals with disabilities, and those of all income levels.

Visual Identity

The logo and color palette was chosen to communicate our core value and understanding that everybody has a different recovery journey; therefore, we are here to provide personalized care for their needs. The san serif font with thick stroke, the design aimed to encourage patients.

Impact Assessment

  • The “LiveFully” service provides a toolkit for its users to live a life less burdened after the surgery. The service aims to help ease the transition from hospital to home.

  • Hospitals are incentivized to reduce readmissions because of the Medicare payment bundle and value-based care incentives. The service helps reduce readmission costs they incur & boosts their quality score.

  • Helping the user transition into a healthier and safer lifestyle reduces the chances of readmissions and the expenditures associated with the same.

“I would definitely use a service like this! Particularly side effect tracking & recipe help.”

From user testing interview - Transplant Recipient

“Could definitely see this being a useful tool for the Transplant Clinic team to intervene sooner, rather than reacting to problems.”

From user testing interview - Clinical Professional

Thank you.