ampulet is a system of digital solutions designed target people's concerns outside of the healthcare space, by solving the complimentary problems that exist within the healthcare “system”.

Background
I approached the problems in healthcare from a very academic angle.

I was inspired by a paper I read in PLOS ONE titled "The Network of Global Corporate Control".

It was thought provoking, so it inspired me to answer the question, who controls healthcare. I re-purposed the algorithm from the paper and found that giving patients control was the best way to go.



I next needed to decide on what the carrot would be, or the medium of control. So I settled on patient medical data. I thought there was potential to use this data as a pseudo currency that patients could use to gain leverage over doctors and insurance. But first, I had to make data appealing.



I learned about the 1600+ record keeping systems out there today and how none of them were any good; and almost all of them were disconnected.



I met with the entire board and staff at United Cerebral Palsy of New York. They offer more than 75 comprehensive heath programs to the citizens of NYC and I listened to the concerns they had about electronic medical records. This allowed me to form a base to begin iterations.



So to start, I decided to design a new standard with bright colors and easy to read elements. I also designed a prototype to allow patients to share their records via mobile in a modular manner.

However, through user testing I learned a truth that I knew already but needed to have validated. People don't care about healthcare the way I thought. It wasn't about power, or control, or money. It was more about a sense of caring.



And the new question I began to ask, "what do you care about", was devoid of the concepts surrounding health. But it started to give me answers.



That is when I realized the design challenge was to target a persons concerns outside of the healthcare space by solving the complimentary problems that exist in the healthcare “system”.

Audience
initial research - everyone - in order to get to the root of the problem.



second release - people who want better communication with their doctors. And those with chronic conditions that have have difficulty explaining symptoms to their doctors.

User Scenario
User Scenario 1



A user has a chronic condition a pain that has lasted for months, but they have trouble telling their doctor about it.



They decide to register an ampulet account and import their records into the system.



They get the mobile application and begin a person diary of their condition which allows them to describe the quality and intensity of the pain over time using international medical standards.



All this information is stored on the cloud and augments their medical record.



When the person goes into the doctors office, he or she shares their record with the doctor who can then see the patients story and make a much faster diagnosis with better information.



User Scenario 2



A person sees an accident.



He or she activates the ampulet emergency features.



He or she calls 911 and records the scene and streams it to the operator.



The emergency responder now has better information about the accident scene which allows them to relay valuable information that allows paramedics to be better prepared when they arrive at the scene.



Seconds save lives.



User Scenario 3



A woman has a history of depression and was raped as a teenager.



She wants to go to the dermatologist.



She does not feel that it is necessary to share this part of her medical history with the dermatologist.



She uses her phone to share her medical record with her dermatologist, but only shares the health history that she thinks is relevant and the dermatologist says is medically necessary.



The user gets treatment, is happy, and has successfully protected her privacy due to ampulet.

Implementation
As a final product before full blown development, I created the assets and user tested designs for a mobile and web application that has a number of features. It allows patients to communicate with doctors, have better access and control over their records, manage prescriptions, and also allow them to help others in an emergency.



My ultimate goal is to create the parts and interactions necessary to spark emergence. This is where a system as a whole suddenly starts to show a behavior which cannot be understood or predicted by looking at the components of the system. So the whole is literally more than the sum of its parts. My research has taught me that this allows a designer to discard complexity and focus on the rules of interaction instead. All of this is incredibly fascinating to me.



But again, it is about empathy and life for me. And in a way, maybe this can be interpreted as selfish. Because, I want this to lead to my own personal freedom. The things people are worried about in their lives are the same things I worry about in my life. I want time to and freedom to live and love. To do the things I want to do. So I want to set everything up right, and not only create tools that give people more freedom over their own lives, but also give me the freedom I want in mine.

Conclusion
Let it come to you ...


The biggest lesson I learned was that creating something great is not about finding a tough problem and just making a solution for it. You have to understand people. Empathy is paramount and understanding your user is sometimes trickier than it seems. To get to the root of the problem, you sometimes have to look through a different lens. It's like solving a riddle, especially when you are dealing with systems and problems as complex as the ones in healthcare.