Automating how doctors generate clinical documentation
Ro
Ro saw unprecedented growth as people turned to our platform for access to GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Our existing clinical workflows couldn't handle the demand, requiring Ro to limit how many patients we could treat.
This case study explores how we unlocked patient growth and revenue potential through streamlining the clinical documentation workflow.
My role
Lead product designer
Product strategy, problem definition, end-to-end design, user validation, implementation support, manual QA
Team
2 product managers, 1 clinical strategy director, 1 content designer, 1 legal advisor, 3 engineers, 5 beta-test doctors
Doctor’s workflow
Patient fills out treatment form
Doctor reviews treatment and prescription
Doctor manually types
1. a clinical note
2. a patient message
Prescription approved and sent to the pharmacy
Problem
Doctors spend 4.4 minutes writing documentation per patient – time that could be spent treating more patients
Why does it take so long?
🤔
Why does it take so long? 🤔
🔎 Searching for scattered data slows doctors down
Doctors take longer to make decisions when they have to scroll and search around for key info.
🫳🏼 Manual entry of data into third-party tools is cumbersome
Doctors manually enter patient info into TextExpander, the industry standard for templatizing documentation. TextExpander generates a clinical note that the doctor copies and pastes back into our system. They do this again for the patient message.
🖱️ Flow requires lots of clicking and typing
After pasting the note into our system, doctors still have to make manual edits to the note and message.
⚠️ Inconsistent standards add friction to ongoing care
Also, different doctors use different TextExpanders. Lack of standardization slows doctors down when reviewing past notes and messages.
How do we streamline this experience?
🤔
How do we streamline this experience? 🤔
Hypothesis
Automating the clinical note and patient message will reduce overall time spent reviewing treatments by 60%
Introducing
AUTONOTE
AutoNote eliminates manual data entry for doctors, freeing up valuable time for patient care. Doctors simply review and approve the documentation for a faster, more efficient workflow.
They still have access to editing the generated note for special cases.
Features & Improvements
📸 Empower doctors with a snapshot of the patient journey
Prioritizing essential health data means doctors no longer have to scroll and search for info.
Doctors still have the flexibility and control to view details in case they need to dig deeper.
⚙️ Pre-populate documentation with patient-entered data
The backend was rearchitected so that patient-entered data could power the documentation, eliminating the need for manual entry into TextExpander.
Now, doctors simply need to review and approve the documentation.
↘️ Reduce steps in the workflow
In addition to the new backend, we revamped the UX and reduced the total workflow steps from five to three, lowering the number of clicks and typing required.
Impact
Doctors now spend <1 minute reviewing patients
Handle time reduced by 78%
Doctors save 23,400 hours annually
Ro saves $2.1M annually
Doctors now treat 40% more new patients a day
Challenges
Balancing flexibility with standardization of workflows
Different doctors have different decision-making processes for reviewing patients, so we needed to create a flexible workflow that balances individual preferences with standardization for quality and safety audits.
Rethinking clinical workflow assumptions
Existing clinical practices and requirements hindered building the experience for usability. By challenging these assumptions and collaborating closely with the clinical team, we created an intuitive experience while maintaining essential safety standards.