This week, in the New Media Development class, we worked on creating a prototype mobile application concept based on specific themes. The themes were health/exercise, food/beverage, nature/outdoors, and organization/time management. We are working as UX designers to make one of the themes better for people. I decided to make a better mobile app for people to refill and track their prescriptions. I currently work as a pharmacy technician, and although we have a mobile app for patients, I think it could be improved. Since I work in a pharmacy, I see the needs and issues patients face when refilling and tracking their medications.
The specific needs I will address in my app include:
- Being able to track when patients picked up their prescriptions
- How many refills are left,
- Which pharmacy did they fill at
- How many days are left of their medication
- Reminders when their medication is getting low
- Communication with the pharmacy by asking questions and putting in refill requests
Communication between patients and the pharmacy is essential as it can help answer questions and reduce the number of calls to the pharmacy. The pharmacy I work at is extremely busy, and I feel like if more patients used an app for their refill requests, it would help the workflow go a lot faster.
I created a survey with questions to see if the public would like to use an app for their prescription needs. I looked at different age groups, genders, the average number of medications taken per day, if they have issues keeping track of their medications, if they use medication tracking, how they contact the pharmacy, and what is frustrating about refilling their prescriptions at a pharmacy. I hoped to get a decent number of people to take my survey. I was stunned that 92 people had filled out my survey! I was able to get great results and many different opinions. Now, I am working on creating different user personas using the survey results.