What is PalPatients?
POV Statement: South Africans who have been victims of medical malpractice need a place that can provide information to help their case as well as comfort and empathy because in recent years the amount of medical malpractice litigation has increased. Namely the case of 48 women being force sterilized.
So we asked "how might we create a platform for malpractice victims to get informed on the intricacies of what was done to them, South African medical law as well as a community to share their stories?"
We then came up with the idea of PalPatients. The name PalPatients is derived from the word 'palpation', which is a method of feeling with the fingers or hands during a physical examination. The health care provider touches and feels your body to examine the size, consistency, texture, location, and tenderness of an organ or body part. The second concept behind the name is quite literal in the sense that we combined the words 'pal' and 'patients' to highlight the distrust and disconnect of African patients towards the modern medicine and medical staff, so that hopefully we can try to create more true relationships between patients and medical staff with a strong trust factor. And so at PalPatients our primary objective is to ensure justice and empathy towards South African people who have been victims of medical malpractice. Therefore, we have created this platform as a means for them to speak out against the injustices that they have faced as well as providing them with the necessary tools, contacts, laws and legal aid to get themselves on the road to justice.
Our Logo
The icon in our logo is based on organic, cell-like shapes which are contained by the circular holding shape. The white cross is a well known symbol of healthcare. Next to the icon is our name, PalPatients. Although it is one word, 'Pal' is in bold text and 'Patients' is in a regular text. The reasoning behind this is due to the above explanation of why we decided on the name PalPatients, it creates a separation between the two root words in order to highlight the distrust and disconnect of African patients towards the modern medicine and medical staff, so that hopefully we can try to create more true relationships between patients and medical staff with a strong trust factor. As for our colour palette, we chose the black and greys in order to denote the seriousness and sadness of the situation, the greys also denote neutrality and balance. The red denotes compassion and empathy and finally the white denotes peace and trust.
Typefaces
The Ubuntu Bold typeface was used for headers and also in the logo with Ubuntu Light as it is a dynamic and legible typeface that fits the aesthetic that we aimed to achive. Acumin Variable Concept was used for sub-headers and body copy as it is also very legible and complements the Ubuntu typeface well.
Photography Outputs
Initially, we were going to use illustrations throughout the project, however with such a serious topic, photography seemed like the more viable and impactful option as far as the effect it would have on our users.
Solution Outputs
Posters
The main function of the posters is to direct users to our website by giving them a brief bit of information as to what PalPatients is about and leaving our URL on it so that they may visit the website.
Poster Mockups
The main locations for our posters would be in legal offices, near medical facilities and in residential areas as our audience would be most likely to see them there. Our poster mockups are also used in social media posts.
Social Media (Instagram)
The main function of our social media page is essentially the same as the posters in that we hope to use it to redirect users to the website. Once again our posts give our audience a brief bit of information as to what PalPatients is about and leaving our URL in our bio and captions so that they may visit the website. Our captions also include our slogan "justice and empathy towards survivors of medical malpractice" and hashtags such as #palpatients, #justice, #empathy and #medicalmalpractice which will bring more traffic to our page via the explore page and users looking at posts containing said hashtags.
Website
Our website consists of 5 main pages:
Home page (which users will land on when the click on our URL).
About page (which gives the user an explanation as to what the purpose of PalPatients is).
Laws page (where users can find out about laws pertaining to their cases).
Aid page (where users can get contact information of legal aid companies that may assist them with their cases).
Chat Room page (where users may get in contact with other survivors as well as legal and medical staff and share their stories and/or ask for advice from others, users have the option of whether to remain anonymous or use their names).
Website Mockups
Thank You!
