Context
As part of an innovation program at Genentech/Roche, I collaborated with an international team to create an innovative healthcare product that would provide the company business value.
Challenge
Underreported Adverse Events can lead to fatality and heavy company costs
With research and brainstorming, our team decided to tackle the problem that Genentech/Roche lacks a simple, efficient, user-friendly way to report adverse events, which can lead to deadly consequences.
Solution
Save time, save money, save lives
We decided to create an intuitive mobile app to report adverse events. When people find it easier and faster to report adverse events, more people would report them more frequently. The company can then make changes to the drug before it injures other people and potentially results in lawsuits.
Process
Design Thinking to pave the way for brainstorming & Ideation session
We brainstormed numerous ideas. No idea was too big or crazy. All ideas were welcomed and we built upon those ideas. Then we narrowed down our options based on technical feasibility based on the timeframe we had and what would provide the business value.
““Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”
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~½ of ALL AE's could have been prevented
Need to balance user and business needs
Talking to the business, we learned the business already thought of an idea for more intuitive AE reporting that was slightly different from what our team had in mind and wanted our alignment. After several discussions, we designed the app to align with business needs while still advocating for the user.
Competitive analysis
Medwatcher was our main source of inspiration.
After some initial sketches, we conducted interviews with the technical team to check feasibility and see what they were able to prototype.
Iterations for rapid progress
After getting business feedback, we iterated time and time again to ensure alignment with business without losing sight of advocating for the user. We made it clear to business that we wanted to align with them as much as possible while making the experience a great one for users, which will result in a better experience for the company.
Final Prototype
Results and Reflections
Listening, creativity, confidence, and flexibility to overcome challenges
With this innovation challenge, we were asked to absorb more uncertainty than more developed project efforts. Because of the uncertainty, scope was a challenge to define with everyone’s different desires and all the different possibilities.
There was also a lot of assumptions that we made. What helped us overcome these challenges was getting to know the business and listening to their drivers and plans. We had a lot of conversations to clarify scope. It also took a lot of creativity, confidence, and the willingness to be flexible for our team to come up with a solution that integrated both user and business needs.