14th May 2019
How might we...
...Foster informed consent within health apps in order to help people to track their health and medical treatments while preserving their privacy?
Creating safe and trustworthy cross-device health apps
Complex medical conditions require special attention, even more so when the ones suffering from it are children. Guardians need detailed tracking and guidance while their kids are going through a treatment.
Product Context
Mymed is an app to store your medical patient data. By using Mymed, people can access their health history and share it with their doctor, family members or even other complimentary services through an API.
By relying on wearables, Mymed makes it easy for parents to take better care of their children by reminding them to perform specific actions.
In order to provide the service, Mymed is powered by some of the following data:
- Secure, private-by-default data storage
- Wearables integration
- Information sharing
Problem & Opportunity
Generate reliable medical tracking data, with proper privacy controls to turn Mymed into an ally and lend a helping hand for better medical treatment.
Design Features
Upfront transparency for a safe and comforting experience
Informing people about data use when they are being introduced to a new app or service is especially important when dealing with sensitive personal information. The goal should be to get people to understand where they are standing. In this case, small text notices help to establish a clear communication path. Often considered as added friction, such notices provide people with useful information that can make them feel more comfortable with sharing sensitive data. Knowing how their data will be used and how it will be secured is key to building a trustworthy environment.
Design Features
Value exchange through a health assistant
Each condition and its treatment will vary depending on the patient, but there will always be a guideline to follow: condition A should be treated by taking N pills at X time intervals, followed up by Y check-ups. Presets provide a guideline of sorts, through which behaviours, interactions, notifications and data can be drawn. Generating awareness around these sorts of mechanisms helps build trust and makes the value exchange self-explanatory.
Design Features
Health reminders with privacy checkins
Linking the app to a wearable device and the condition being treated will make for a hard-to-miss, easygoing treatment plan. Notifications will help generate awareness on both ends: young people will be guided towards the desired behaviour and parents will be notified when the action has been performed, providing a detailed report to be shared with whoever the parents decide. In addition to being a key feature, these notifications and reminders allow for both parents and children to regularly check in-context who they are sharing their data with and to what end. Privacy settings are transparent as to what’s happening with people’s data at all times.
Next steps
How might we make information flow seamlessly between different practitioners without jeopardising people’s safety and privacy?
