Role: Lead Communications Designer, collaborating with a team of researchers, Clinical Transformation and Salesforce teams.

Skills Used: UX Design, Communications Mapping

When it comes to chronic medications, patients take only half their prescribed medications - a shortfall from the 80% adherence rate needed for optimal therapeutic efficacy.

We worked with the Clinical Transformation team at Ascension to design a medication adherence program that is delivered to patients through SMS text messaging. Using behavioral change theory, such as gamification, the goal was to motivate adherence when taking chronic medications. On the clinician-side, we surface patient's adherence rates so that they can have better conversations during visits.

I hosted workshops to visualize and map the program through a communications service blueprint.

Language had to be vetted by multiple stakeholders: clinical needed to provide input on specific medication terminology, marketing to ensure that the tone was on brand, Salesforce needed to understand the logic of how to build this in Journey Builder. Maintaining one visual artifact that was the source of truth helped keep our cross-functional teams aligned.

I then visualized what the patient view looks like

This helped make the program tangible when it came to talking to leadership. We were also able to sort things like how "long" a message might feel based on how much space it takes up in the user view.

We refined the program design, and finally launched the first pilot in January of 2024.

The Patient Experience

As a patient, you would be enrolled into MedTrack by your provider. We ran a pilot that focused on chronic conditions — those prescribed oral statin and/or oral diabetes medication.

• Patients would receive daily reminders to take their medication.

• Patients start with 70 points. If more than half of check-ins are missed that day they lose 10 points

• Maintaining points over 50, moves them up a level. Losing points below 50 moves them down a level.

• Points reset every week

• We frequently message them that the nurse line is available for any questions.

The Clinician Experience

As a clinician you would be able to access a dashboard showing a patient's adherence rate over time. Additionally you would be able to see any case notes created by a nurse (when the patient contacts the nurse line)

We launched the pilot in two markets— Nashville and Indy.

210 patients were part of this first pilot

70%

of patients completed their check-ins

84%

Participation Rate

86%

of patients found text reminders for medication to be helpful

Some of the feedback we heard:

• Patients desired greater clarity about key program features (e.g., who was messaging and the purpose of the points)

• Patients wanted to vary when they receive reminders and when to check-in

• Patients wanted contact number to be surfaced without needing to text MEDHELP

A second pilot using refined program design is currently in development and scheduled for launch soon.

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