KIDNEY TRACKER
Kidney Disease Monitoring & Managing App
Facts
- 1 in 10 Canadians have kidney disease (4,000,000 people)
- More than 50,000 Canadians are being treated for kidney failure
Kidneys & Kidney Disease
The kidneys filter waste and toxins, regulate substances like electrolytes and minerals, and help regulate blood pressure. They also produce hormones and activate vitamin D. The kidneys are essential for maintaining the body's internal environment and overall health.
Causes of kidney disease include diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, family history, certain medications, infections, autoimmune disorders, and kidney injuries. Prevention and early detection are key to managing the condition.
Having no cure to kidney disease today, it is still possible to prevent it from deteriorating further and manage your overall health.
There are 5 stages of kidney disease and we aimed to design our application thinking patients regardless of which stage they are in.
Primary Research
To get a solid grasp of the whole project, we needed to understand patients' journey, so we reached out to kidney patients in Canada over various platforms. We've conducted interviews with 11 patients and 2 nurses over the phone and via surveys.
In order to converge and come up with main ideas, we've gathered each note under
4 main categories:
4 main categories:
Management
Monitoring
Communication
Resource Library
Key Insights
1. Diet is important in all stages for prevention of the disease and maintenance overall health
2. Documentation of vitals such as blood pressure and weight is important in all aspects of the journey.
3. Having a supportive medical team is essential to the success of managing symptoms and alleviating communication barriers.
4. Medications are a vital therapy in treating symptoms and managing health.
Quote by a patient during our research: "It's like running a long triathlon."
Patients' Needs
1. Being able to remotely exchange info between patient and their medical team
2. Being able to take notes and input vitals on a platform where medical team can check in real-time
3. Accessibility to resources
Big Idea Vignettes
Diverge on a breadth of possible solutions to meet user needs
Idea Prioritization
Converge and finalize main concept
Sketch
Each member of the team started sketching their ideas on paper. Later, we combined the best ideas into one application.
Talking with some of the patients over our early sketches, patients especially favoured the Pill Reminder feature since other apps didn't have anything like it. Some patients have to take 30-40 pills a day to keep their health stable, so we knew we were going in the right direction.
Wireframe & Remote User Testing
We've created an interactive wireframe using proto.io and conducted early user testing over Google Meet. Participants consisted of a parent caregiver, a nephrologist pharmacist, an eKidneyCare advocate and two adult kidney patients.
As a result, the participants felt that our app is competitive with existing apps on the market. It also has additional features such as My Profile which they have been longing for to be able to input their needs.
With that said, we received a criticism about the fact that since it’s a medical application, they wanted to see more privacy features implemented.
Final Prototype
In our last stage of the project we did user testing with a tech savvy kidney patient,
a Sick Kids dialysis nurse educator and a social worker/adult kidney patient
a Sick Kids dialysis nurse educator and a social worker/adult kidney patient
Feedback
+ Pill tracker and library functions are unique to our application:
+ They all take between 2 - 40 pills a day, so our pill reminder and tracker is appreciated. They all spoke in detail about our pill tracking function.+ They explained our clinic notes are important because they are using multiple external sources to keep track of things and its unorganized and difficult for them. The resource library is a much needed feature as well.
+ The app is user friendly and intuitive.
+ The app is user friendly and intuitive.
! We need a clearly defined privacy policy, that addresses who has access to this info on the app because security is a concern to one of our test subjects.
! It was noted that in terms of the “medical history page” patients should not be able to edit this. The concern is they may self-diagnose or simply add so many symptoms that the medical team might be confused.
"Medication feature is exactly what the patients need."
"It’s simple, better, not complicated, user friendly."
"This app would make my life easier."
Project made by
Mert Tanatmis & Natasha Murji
Mert Tanatmis & Natasha Murji
