November 2020 - June 2021
accuBook
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I played a key role in the rapid development of accuBook by Accurx, an essential platform aiding in the efficient and safe booking and delivery of vaccinations.
Summary
Led design process from start to finish, meeting strict deadlines in a regulated setting.
Worked closely with a user researcher to validate user needs and test usability.
Collaborated with a clinical lead to make decisions with reduced risk.
How I contributed
Overview
Accurx mission is to build a world-leading healthcare communication platform. Established in 2016, today over 98% of GP practices use accuRx to communicate with their patients.
Back in November 2020, with confirmation the NHS needed to be ready to start roll out the COVID-19 vaccinations in December, the NHS needed to prepare for rapid and effective delivery of the vaccine to millions of patients at the highest risk. accuRx decided to quickly pivot into delivering accuBook, a platform to allow GP practices and delivery sites to effectively and safely book and deliver COVID-19 vaccinations.
Timeline
Delivering an MVP in four weeks
Discovery
From assumptions to solutions
accuBook's goal is to support the COVID-19 vaccination program through various means: enabling patients to self-book their vaccinations, automating recall and reminder processes, maximising vaccination uptake, and minimizing vaccine wastage through efficient clinic setup.
The product's complexity stemmed from being a multifaceted system where three distinct user types interacted with one another: delivery sites (GP practices setting up clinics), GP practices (responsible for inviting patients and monitoring bookings), and patients (who need invitations and a simple booking process).
The research phase involved engaging with a responsive user community, survey and research calls to understand user needs amidst uncertainties. Building the accuBook MVP presented a unique challenge as we ventured into uncharted territory: since our users didn't have any prior experience in running COVID-19 vaccination clinics, our usual process of user research became significantly more difficult.
This meant we had to make many assumptions at the beginning. It was important to make sure we were documenting these, so that we could go back once we (and primary care at large) knew more about some of the specifics and amend what we were planning to do.
Just a few days after pivoting to support the vaccination delivery, we had an MVP journey map ready.
Design
Think, build, launch. Repeat.
It was time to start designing. Having set ourselves a deadline of having a working version by Christmas, we needed the MVP designs ready in 3 days! With the help of Andrew, another designers in the team, our very first iteration was quickly ready to be picked up by devs.
It was time to start designing. Having set ourselves a deadline of having a working version by Christmas, we needed the MVP designs ready in 3 days! With the help of Andrew, another designers in the team, our very first iteration was quickly ready to be picked up by devs.
Our MVP was ready to go in 4 weeks. This meant we were in time for practices to use our software to invite and book in patients for their first vaccination deliveries.Constant contact with our users, through testing and user support constantly steered us to iterate and improve our product.
Between January and June 2021, accuBook went through continuous iterations, due to both changing requirements from NHS and different user needs. Our very simple MVP flow looked like this at the end!
Particular attention was given to our invite flow, that allows a practice to upload a list of patient and automatically send out an SMS with a booking link.
Our very first solution would allow, in agreement with NHS guidance, to:
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Upload a list of patients and automatically invite them to book both their vaccinations.
On 30th Dec 2020, NHS guidance changed to give priority to first vaccinations, so we had to pivot to a system which would let users to:
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Automatically invite to first vaccination
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Monitor patients awaiting for second dose
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Invite patients for second dose in the correct timeframe.
Because of this, our users needed a better, clearer way to manage their patient lists that could support different workflows so that every practice in the country could effectively deliver the vaccination programme.
Other improvements that I was very keen to make in the product were sadly deprioritised due to the very extensive backlog our team had.
Outcome
Impact and feedback
30M vaccination appointments booked in England and Wales
72% self-booked appointments
£16M saved in admin costs
Some feedback from a user 💚 :
"At the weekend we were offered 1000 vaccines at very short notice. We accepted knowing that we could use accuBook to get patients booked in and within an hour we had filled a clinic on a Sunday morning for the same day! Within 2 hours we were vaccinating vulnerable elderly patients.[..] 1000 more people have now started their journey towards a safer life entirely because we could get them booked within a couple of hours."
accuBook was shortlisted as a FT Tech Champions in the category Healthcare in November 2021.