Proteus Discover | Product Design & Commercialisation
Discover was a digital healthcare platform offering insight into patient health patterns and medication treatment effectiveness. It included medications with ingestible sensors, a small wearable sensor patch, a patient friendly app, and a physician portal. The platform was deployed in the USA and its effectiveness was measured in a number of clinical trials including therapy in Hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes and Hepatitis C.
My Role | Director User Experience Design
For three and a half years I directed UX at Proteus Digital Health. When I joined the company they had no comercial product but were beginning to scope the strategy for a therapy agnostic platform (Proteus Discover) that could utilise their core medication adherence technology. During my time at the organisation I grew a multi-disciplinary design and user research team, developed their design capability and ultimately lead design of Proteus Discover.
Patient Set Up | Autonomous Patient Onboarding
One critical challenge for the product was to create a simple onboarding process that allowed the patient to set up an account, assemble, pair and place their first patch and create a medication schedule. We iterated on solutions and conducted numerous controlled usability studies and site tests to arrive at the following combination of packaging, guides and app interactions.
Patient Engagement | Product Adherence
Using a continual user research programme we developed a roadmap and backlog of features that could be added to the product to improve the patient value offering and product adherence rates over time. Two sample features are shown bellow.
The first utilised the wearable sensor patch metrics on medication taking patterns, activity levels and rest. These metrics where presented on the patient app which showed daily metrics and long term trend, providing implicit motivation to improve.
The second is missed dose feedback which allowed the patient to report logistical issues impeding adherence so these issues could be addressed by their health care provider.
Healthcare Integration | Reducing Clinician Friction
As the products use expanded to new sites and use cases we worked to improve workflow integration. This reduced the friction of processes such as introduction, prescription, patient set up and data reviews. Our aim was to maximise the value of data for healthcare professionals and minimise any additional burden created through product use.
Product Efficacy | Clinical Evidence
During my time at Proteus Digital Health the efficacy of the Discover platform was measured in two clinical studies showing favourable results.
Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes Treatment
This study assessed the impact on clinic-measured blood pressure (BP) and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) using the discover platform deployed with a panel of cardiometabolic medications to measure medication ingestion adherence, physical activity, and rest. Results showed greater reductions in HbA1c, DBP, and LDL-C, and a greater proportion of participants at BP goal at weeks 4 and 12 compared with usual care.
Publication Link
Hepatitis C Treatment
This study aimed to determine the impact of the Discover platform on the efficacy of, and adherence to, direct acting antivirals medications in patients at risk for non-adherence. Overall adherence rate was 93% using the Discover platform. Results suggest the product may be used to support adherence and optimize cure rates in difficult to treat HCV populations.
Publication Link