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UX Design
Product, UX/UI Design for a Complex Contract Negotiation Application

My goal was to to innovate and streamline the contract negotiation process within one of the nation's leading healthcare providers.

Main Goal

Allow the SPS ∧ PCA Users to streamline the contract negotiation process.

My Role

Head of User Experience, Lead Product, UX, UI and Visual Designer and UX Researcher

Time Frame

Less than 2 months

What My Team and I Built for HCA Healthcare:

As a Lead Product Designer on the Advanced Innovation team for HCA Healthcare, I was part of a highly skilled group dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare contract negotiation. Our team consisted of a Machine Learning Developer, another Developer, a Project/Product Manager, and a Product Owner. Together, we embarked on the HCA: Contract Negotiating Optimization project, aiming to innovate and streamline the contract negotiation process within one of the nation's leading healthcare providers.

HCA Healthcare operates 182 hospitals and over 2,300 sites of care across 20 states and the United Kingdom, including surgery centers, freestanding ERs, urgent care centers, diagnostic and imaging centers, walk-in clinics, and physician clinics. Our mission was to enhance this extensive network by optimizing contract negotiations, ultimately contributing to a healthier tomorrow for our patients.

The Problem

My challenge was to understand the target market of users and to push the boundaries of what is currently possible in healthcare contract negotiation. My role was crucial in building a cutting-edge solution that will optimize the complex contract negotiation process.

Some questions that will be addressed through the process:

  • Who are the target users?
  • What pain points are users hitting while negotiating contracts?
  • What tools do users have access to?
  • What is the current process of contract negotiation and why is it so painful?
  • Will solutions be able to calculate optimal yield?
  • Can users easily perform their job with this new tool?

My Role and Contributions:

In my role as the Lead Product Designer, I focused on ensuring the usability and effectiveness of our solutions. My responsibilities included:

1.

Contract Analysis:

I worked closely with the team to thoroughly analyze the current contract negotiation processes. My goal was to identify key variables, constraints, and objectives that would inform our design and development efforts.

2.

User-Centered Design:

I led the UX design efforts, creating intuitive interfaces and user flows that facilitated smooth interactions with our optimization algorithms. My designs were driven by user research and feedback, ensuring that the final product met the needs of all users.

3.

Data Management Collaboration:

I collaborated with our Machine Learning Developer and Data Scientists to manage and analyze large datasets. This data was crucial for understanding trends and informing our optimization strategies.

4.

Simulation and Testing:

I played a key role in simulating contract negotiation scenarios, testing the usability and efficiency of our algorithms. This involved iterative testing and refinement to ensure our solutions were robust and accurate.

5.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

I worked closely with legal, finance, and business development teams to ensure our algorithms aligned with business objectives. I also prepared detailed reports and presentations on our UX findings and recommendations.

6.

Continuous Improvement:

I stayed abreast of the latest developments in UX design and healthcare optimization methodologies, continuously seeking ways to improve our approach and deliver better results.

The Team's Achievements:

Our team developed a groundbreaking platform that transformed HCA's contract negotiation process. Key features included:

- Algorithm Development: I designed the UX, UI and Product Design for the web application and Developers implemented constraint-based optimization algorithms tailored to enhance the profitability of contracts. This involved formulating mathematical models and employing advanced optimization techniques.

- Data-Driven Insights: Leveraging extensive data analysis, we refined our optimization strategies to ensure they were informed by the latest trends and insights.

- Collaboration and Reporting: Our cross-functional collaboration ensured that our strategies were aligned with HCA's business objectives, and our detailed reports and presentations kept all stakeholders informed.

Impact and Future Directions:

By joining forces with a team/pod of exceptional individuals, we developed a platform that maximized value for HCA and ensured the best possible care for patients through contract negotiations.

My involvement spanned all stages of the design process: research, strategy, design, and user testing.

Defining product design concept, information architecture and creating wireframes. Making decisions around content, design, and product strategy that are informed by metrics and research.

Design research. Planning and conducting design research, organizing workshops with stakeholders to discuss research findings and synthesize solutions, validate design decisions through usability studies.

My Tools:

  • Figma
  • Figjam
  • Miro
  • PowerBI
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Google Forms
  • usertesting.com
  • usabilityhub.com

My UX Process

I follow IDEO's Human-Centered Design and the
Lean UX Design Thinking process.

I used the the below research methods as I feel this process is the best way to accumulate quantitative & qualitative data on users and competitors in most industries. This in turn informs my design with a research & evidence based solution.

  • 1 Research

    Usability Tests
    Depth Interviews
    Online Surveys
    Competitive Benchmarking Analysis

  • 2 Analysis

    Affinity Diagram
    Customer Journey Map
    personas

  • 3 Design

    Flow Diagram
    Defining Navigation
    Figmaing
    Wireframing

  • 4 Prototype

    Low, Medium and High Fidelity Prototypes
    Interactive Prototype
    Finalize Design and Strategy

  • 5 Test

    Usability Tests
    Depth Interviews on Prototype
    Iteration

THE PROCESS
1
Research

For the research phase of the project I used the following methods: Usability Tests, Depth Interviews and Online Surveys

image

Data gleaned from user interviews, and testing 01.

image

Data gleaned from user interviews, and testing 02.

RCO Testing Information, etc. ↗

Personas

I organized my data by creating personas that I could refer back to throughout the design process ensuring that I was designing for essential user needs and goals and to reduce the risk of feature bloat in my products.

image User personas reflecting the data from the research 01
image User personas reflecting the data from the research 02

THE PROCESS
2
Analysis - Feature Prioritization List

Users want real-time calculations and recalculations with quality and data validation built in.

Users helped with the challenge of identifying which business rules and KPIs to optimize around, and when per contract and service line.

Users also wanted the ability to add and edit patient add-ons that generate significant attention, i.e. extras days, emergency surgery, etc.

The following features would be implemented into the RCO Tool:

  • Easy sign-on and login
  • Ability to price specific service lines to get a better overall contract rate.
  • Easily compare previous years contracts - going back two years.
  • Not have to do any by hand calculations and be able to trust the numbers the tool is showing.
image
image
Feature Prioritization ↗
RCO Learnings and Updates ↗

THE PROCESS
3
Design

My design process would include User Stories and a Flow Diagram

User Journey Map and User Flow

Based on the motivations in my user stories and from testing, I generated a list of user personas to help define the main tasks of users.

I then created user flows in Figma to break down the complex user stories and visualize the paths of action users take to achieve their goals.

This stage of the design process was critical in identifying the areas of cognitive overload and what users need to see on the screen.

image User Journey Map 01
User Journey Map 01 ↗
image User Journey Map 03
User Journey Map 03 ↗

User Flow

Next step in my design process was to work on the wireframes. Here I could call upon my earlier research and mobile app experience.

image Wireframes 01
Wireframes and Flow 01 ↗

THE PROCESS
4 and 5
Prototype and Design

In creating my wireframes, I focused on reducing confusion of the entire application, balancing the amount of content, visual balance, and user-friendly UI. To reach these goals, I stripped away extraneous features users were less interested in and my teams findings in the Feature Prioritizations List above. 

image Wireframes 02
Wireframes 02 ↗
image Mock Up and Flow 03
Mock Up and Flow 03 ↗

UX UI and Product Design

For this project, I used Figma for the wireframes and design. 

In creating my wireframes, I focused on reducing confusion of the entire application, balancing the amount of content, visual balance, and user-friendly UI. To reach these goals, I stripped away extraneous features users were less interested in. 

In my user flows, I recognized areas where the flows could be simplified through automation. Automating secondary actions would provide a more delightful and seamless experience for the user. Areas benefiting from automation included the promo-discount application and default tip amount in the User-closeout flow. 

image High Fidelity Mock Up 04
High Fidelity Mock Up 04 ↗
image High Fidelity Mock Up 05
High Fidelity Mock Up 05 ↗
image High Fidelity Mock Up 06
High Fidelity Mock Up 06 ↗
image High Fidelity Future Chat AI Interface 07
High Fidelity Future Chat AI Interface 07 ↗

Conclusion

What I learned

This project taught me effective time management for a very quick turnaround:

  • This was a quick 6 week high-level project and the client wasn't even sure what the tool was supposed to be. Thankfully, my team was a great group of professionals and we figured it out.
  • Save some suggestions for future releases. Users will always have ideas for additional features. At times, I found myself exploring ways to incorporate these nice-to-have features and losing sight of the project goals. If I hadn't established goals at earlier stages of the project, I wouldn't have them to reference back to and could easily have been designing forever. Instead, I learned that it’s better to keep the product lightweight, get something out there, and work these nice-to-have features into a future release.
  • Treat the users as the experts. During tests, users brought up some interesting scenarios I hadn’t yet thought of (ex. What happens if I want to compare contracts from previous years?). I didn’t have an answer. So I asked the user what they thought would happen and they provided an amazing solution. “Two years of contract data max at any time.”
  • If possible, test, test and test some more. I used usertesting.com and Figjam for my user tests because it allowed me to instantly test my designs. However, when users became stumped by a question or confused by the limitations of the unfinished prototype, I was unable to provide them alternative tasks, without skewing results, to salvage the remainder of their test time. Overall the Users were so excited that we were creating this tool for them.
  • Request feedback for future development. I was thinking of the nice-to-have features and wondered if I might be missing other ‘essential’ features that could be first added into future designs.
  • For fun I created two After Effects Animations to go get buy in from the VP's.
image
After Effects RCO Logo Reveal

After Effects RCO Logo Reveal

For fun and VP buy in, I did a cool After Effects Logo animation.

image
After Effects RCO Intro Animation

After Effects RCO Intro Animation

For fun and VP buy in, I did a cool After Effects intro animation.

Thank You!

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