MedShare
Shared emergency medicine

October 2017 (3 weeks)
Class Project for Interaction Design Studio

PROBLEM SPACE

People don’t have convenient access to medication that could save their lives

People with chronic conditions like asthma and allergy are burdened to pay for and carry around medical devices all day in case of emergency. Such devices are expensive and inconvenient to carry. However, not having immediate access to those devices can risk their lives.

For asthma alone, millions of hospitals visits and thousands of deaths can be avoided if having access to medication in time.

NEEDFIDING

Conducting guerrilla research to understand the current state

We interviewed 12 people with asthma and food allergy as well as EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). Here are some interview highlights:

Synthesizing interview insights and secondary research, we identified key issues of current system:

• Emergency devices and medicine are very expensive
  One pack of Epipen costs $600, each patient needs at least two packs – one for home, one for school/work place.
• People often forget to carry their medicine or stop carrying them
  Only less than 30% patients who are subscribed to Epipen carry it with them all the time.
• Many devices go unused and expire
  EpiPens only have a one-year shelf life. About 99 percent of them expire on shelves.

REFRAME AND ITERATE

Reframe the question

What if instead of every patient owns a set of medical devices, the recourses are shared in a community?

Concept: Medshare

Our solution is MedShare. Instead of one person buying and keeping all the medicine in case of emergency, MedShare allows people to share the medicine at the exact time when it is needed.

MedShare collaborates with Uber and Lyft. Drivers who sign up to be a helper would carry the medical devices in the car and deliver them on receiving an emergency request.

Personas

Need Validation

In order to test whether the user recognize the need, we presented to them a simple storyboard illustration the problem and solution. The feedback shows both positive reactions to the underlying need and some concerns.

We recognize legal regulations to be a major barrier to this concept. However, we believe regulation to be adaptable to technology advancement, so the discussion about legal concern is out of scope for this project.
The challenge is to help users build a sense of trust in our service while understand the risks and take alternative actions if needed.

Iterations

We created a screen map to identify all the screens needed and prioritize the most important screens.

We had a sketching session as a group to explore designs alternatives. A mid-fidelity prototype is then made for testing.

DESIGN DECISIONS