PLEXUS
Hypertension is a chronic illness that starts developing from the age of 35.
Plexus helps control and manage the fluctuations of blood pressure
Skills
Tools
Rhino 3D
Procreate
Figma
Keyshot
Roles
Systems Designer
Product Designer
Industrial Designer
User Research
UI/UX Design
Industrial Design
Systems Design
Time Frame
4 weeks
Team
Product Manager
Venture Builder
Physicians
Feedback Loops
Systems Design
1/5
HAVE IT IN CONTROL
~ 1000
DEATHS / DAY IN US ALONE
1/3
AMERICANS HAVE HYPERTENSION
$51 billion
ANNUAL ESTIMATED COST ASSOCIATED
My mother is a patient with Hypertension and in the past couple of years, I have seen her struggle to manage this chronic illness.
In my research to understand how better I can help her, I discovered that it's a very common issue and needs to be addressed systematically
A PROBLEM MORE COMMON THAN YOU THINK
This chronic illness is seen to be built up from the age of 35 yrs because of work-life imbalance, stress, unhealthy lifestyle, and food choices.
My mother started developing this illness by the age of 47 yrs when my father had to move because of work.
WHY IT HAPPENS
fatigue
confusion
insomnia
blurred vision
breathlessness
headache
One of the most dangerous things about Hypertension is that the patient might not even know when they have it.
Nearly 1/3rd of people don't even know that they have it.
Hypertension doesn't have symptoms unless it's very severe, which includes :
SYMPTOMS
PLEXUS
A wearable for controlling and managing Hypertension
Hypertension is a lifelong illness and doesn't just gets rectified by medicines, it needs a change in lifestyle with regular checkups with the doctor.
WAYS TO NORMALIZE
healthy lifestyle
medicines
regular vitals
check
scheduled doctor's
appointment
Mobile application which helps the patient to achieve a healthy lifestyle, records and shows the measurement of blood pressure at various time, helps the patient to stay in touch with their closed ones and the PCP
ILLNESS DISCOVERY AND MONITORING
Interviews and secondary research helped me in mapping out the patient's illness discovery and I found:
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Friends and families, along with physicians plays an important role in managing the illness
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A network between patient's Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Care
CAREGIVING NETWORK
EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL SUPPORT
Emotional support helps patient to rely on close people to help them in maintaining normal blood pressure and in emergency situations
CARE & HEALTH
Patients often needs help from care givers for mental and physical stability
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
In case of higher severity, admissions to hospitals, surgeries and medication can cost high and patient needs financial support
*Click to view in bigger size
JOURNEY MAP
From interviews, I mapped out the activities that patient does and feels during a typical day
I discovered that in "added events" like pandemic, sickness the condition becomes more severe
Competition Analysis
I also looked at the existing solutions which are trying to manage this chronic illness, I found most of them have :
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No consideration of Patient's Caregiving Network
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Lack of contact with PCP for emergencies
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Unnecessary information for the patient to know, increasing the cognition load in app
-
Less to no prompts for developing a healthy lifestyle
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Unexplored ways of drug delivery system in case of emergencies
Easy connection with Caregiving Network
Improve Lifestyle
Need to have easy and quick communication with PCP
Accurate, Continuous and Easy (ACE) blood pressure monitoring
To have a better healthcare management system
USER GOALS
The research and interviews helped me in understanding what exactly the patients are looking for to improve their battle with this chronic illness
SYSTEMIC UNDERSTANDING OF HYPERTENSION
To understand the internal working of blood pressure, I refined it to a closed loop system and identified the problems in its Autonomy
Monitor, provide more access to patient’s caregiving network, and help people control this chronic illness by bringing a change in their lifestyle?
HOW MIGHT WE
Contains one or more sensors to continuously track patient's
vitals
Recorded data is then processed and enables control of Plexus on basis of various algorithms
(either on device or cloud controlled)
The recorded data is continuously used to improve product's performance and predict unstable blood pressure
Combining Monitoring, Control and Optimization gives an opportunity to Plexus to evolve into a smart product which does self diagnosis
Why a Wearable and a Mobile application
Based on Michael Porter's framework, Plexus follows 4 principles of Smart, Connected Products
AUTOMATED MONITORING AND DIAGNOSIS
I introduced a Photo Plethysmography (PPG) Sensor which continuously measures Arterial blood pressure. The measured data is sent to a comparator to identify the delta blood pressure and ultimately take the decision to inject moderated dose of Hydralazine (Medication used in IV)
SEAMLESS INTEGRATION
Quick and Easy On boarding
Product, Application and Cloud integration
CARE AND WELLBEING
Easy and better accessible care network
A Guide to better Lifestyle
DIGITAL
EMPATHY
Capturing notion of shared experience
Personal assistance in User's Battle
THE PILLARS OF ECOSYSTEM
The above study provided me with enough information to establish design principles for the ecosystem.
PRODUCT ECOSYSTEM - OVERVIEW
The ecosystem consists of three major elements Wearable, Phone Application, and Cloud Integration which together work to provide an optimized workflow of the products
TASKFLOWS
Zooming Into the Ecosystem, there are two taskflows which were required
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Patient and Wearable interaction Taskflow
-
Wearable, Mobile Application and Cloud Taskflows
A DAY WITH PLEXUS
Sends notification to caregiver about the patient’s health
It sends out the notifications to the caregiving network
The app books an ambulance for the patient
Based on the classification, the app suggests intake of oral medication
Sends notification to caregiver about the patient’s health
Confirming that B.P. is rising
and not falling, the wearable injects moderated dose of Hydralazine
Gives a Red LED feedback
After an hour, patient starts feeling headache confirming no affect of oral medicine
The wearable sends a notification to patient
about the elevated blood pressure
Following illustration describes an Emergency situation recorded by Plexus
Measured Blood Pressure : >=160/80 mmHG
LEARNINGS
NEXT STEPS
-
I learned that managing and controlling a chronic illness is not just taking medicines on time, but a healthy lifestyle to eradicate.
-
Managing a chronic illness becomes difficult to deal with in later years of life. It's better to control and eradicate it in the early years of illness development by incorporating a healthy lifestyle
-
To manage this chronic illness patients rely on Friends, Family and Neighbors to manage this chronic illness, an easy and quick connectivity helps them to achieve better mental and physical health
-
A conjunction of Wearable and Digital product can provide a better care system for patients suffering from chronic illness
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Integration of Blood Pressure measurement with Apple Watch and other PPG available devices
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Setting up the design language system for the application and Wearable
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User testing of the mobile applications for the patient and its caregiving network
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Designing the mobile application for friends, family and PCP
An ecosystem that consists of a mobile app and a wearable that works in conjunction to provide continuous monitoring and optimized recommendations based on cloud data provided, to bring a change in the lifestyle.
SOLUTION
WEARABLE
Normal BP Stage (<120/80 mmHG)
Elevated BP Stage (120/80 - 129/80 mmHG)
Stage - 1 BP (130/80 - 139/89 mmHG)
Stage -2 BP ( > 140/89 - 180/90 mmHG)
Green LED flashes
Yellow LED flashes
Red LED flashes
Orange LED flashes
Device
The patient wears the wearable on the wrist.
With the help of its adjustable strap, it can fit any size.
The LED channel on the sides gives various feedback :
-
Various Blood pressure stages
-
Product battery levels
-
Product Malfunction
LED and Haptic Feedback
It gives real-time B.P status using LED and Haptics
-
Double tap to know the status
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Haptic and LED feedback pattern (higher stage, higher frequency of pattern)
Mechanism
The inner side of the wearable has a space for a medicine called Hydralazine which is used in IV medication.
It's injected only when the blood pressure is rising and reaches more than 170 mmHg
PPG sensor continuously measures arterial blood pressure and sends the info via Bluetooth or Wi-fi to the application
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Keeping in mind the User Goals and task flow, I developed an Information Architecture of the mobile app.
USERFLOW
The initial phase of sketches helped me in understanding the overall flow of the application which were later refined on the feedback of the target audience to a more ergonomic and reduced cognition load design.
With help of high precision PPG sensor and a mobile application, the ACE monitoring system fulfills the need of continuous monitoring of blood pressure
MOBILE APPLICATION
Keeping in mind the User Goals and task flow, I developed an Information Architecture of the mobile app.
Blood pressure changes quickly and needs to be monitored 24/7 for doctors to understand the pattern
Conditions become more serious in the case of added events like Pandemic (2020), stress, etc where there’s a need for easier, quicker, and effective communication with the patient’s care network
Being a chronic illness it needs to be controlled by bringing a change towards healthy lifestyle
Continuous Monitoring
Access to Caregiving Network
Lifestyle change
KEY TAKEAWAYS
© 2022 Built by Nitin Sauran with lots of feedback and care
All Rights Reserved
Optimized for Desktop Viewing, responsive in progress
MATT LI
AGE 48
CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER
“ my work hampers with
daily life, adds stress to my lifestyle ”
SUGANDH
AGE 59
HOUSEWIFE
“with my kids in other cities, i feel alone and fear for my hypertension, stresses me out”
KATE
AGE 73
HOUSEWIFE
“ since I have aged, my health problems have increased and acts on my irregular blood pressure ”
I started by interviewing three patients, including my Mother and Doctors, to dive deep into understanding its causes, treatments, experiences, and ways to manage this illness.
This helped me in understanding the effects of hypertension on their daily lifestyle and how they manage it to make it normal.
Target Audience : 50-70 yrs
RESEARCH
Get continuous care from your PCP by easily contacting them on Call, Message or a Video Call
Improve your overall lifestyle and get blood pressure under control by learning from a vast library of videos for improving Sleep, Mental health, Exercise and eating healthy
Complete daily tasks like exercise, eating, PCP prescribed diet and taking medicines on time
Quickly connect with your Friends, Family, and Neighbors in an emergency
Find the nearest member and connect with them over a call or chat
Dashboard informs the user about overall Lifestyle progress, achieved goals and overall physical and mental stats
Constant updated and generated reports for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly are available at the tips of the patient to quickly be informed about their illness and can be shared quickly with PCP for any emergencies
