athenaClinicals Mobile Strategy

Previously, athenahealth did not have a comprehensive mobile strategy. We were developing overlapping and wasteful apps that were not meaningfully integrated with each other or the broader athenaNet ecosystem. We found that our users weren't finding our mobile offerings sufficient or relevant enough to incorporate into their daily workflows. 

Although we were lacking a cohesive mobile vision, we knew through user research and testimonials that physicians were expecting this functionality. We know that physicians spend too much time in the EHR, and not as much with patients. As consumer behaviors and expectations shift, many users have alternative devices they expect to be able to use to improve their efficiency.

Ambulatory physicians spend 49.2% of their total work time on EHR and desk work, and 27% of their time on direct face time with patients. After office hours, physicians spend another 1-2 hours at home on additional computer and clerical work. 

We needed a multi-device strategy that delivers a meaningful and consistent set of services to the right users at the right time.

We began by taking a deeper look at one of our existing mobile offers, the Clinicals Out of Office web app. In 2013, the Clinicals team released the Out Of Office web application for mobile devices. The goal with this service was to provide ambulatory physicians with a way to access the EHR when not in the office, and improve their workflows. Over the course of four years, OOO traffic and usage grew on its own, without any marketing or messaging. 

We then began interviewing 15 physicians who currently use Out of Office. We learned about their current mobile habits, their average work day, and their pain points.

After gathering research about our users, I translated our findings into a journey map. By layering user testimonials with usage metrics, an artifact was created to initiate conversation with stakeholders, as well as to identify key opportunity areas. 

The user journey map also served as a tool to help generate ideas for possible solutions. It was critical that we bring stakeholders through the process, including gathering and incorporating their feedback. We printed the journey map, and used it as a tool to connect and brainstorm with stakeholders, and then synthesized the ideas into opportunity areas and concepts. 

The identified opportunity areas were turned into six high level concepts, which we the placed in front of users to get a sense of which concepts they resonated with the most. Through concept testing and forced ranking, we learned more about our user's needs.

Through synthesizing and prioritizing the feedback that we received from users, we developed a vision for the athenaClinicals mobile strategy. This research and vision is currently being referenced and utilized by both the athenaClinicals Mobile team, as well as product marketing. 

Shortly following the conclusion of this research, athenahealth purchased Praxify, a mobile EHR product with hospital knowledge. The focus of our research was ambulatory physicians, so this mobile vision was a great way to help get stakeholders up to speed on ambulatory users, and help educate team members on the opportunity areas within that space.