Case study
Digitising Pathology Referrals
I joined a multi-phase engagement with a national healthcare diagnostics provider, to help modernise the delivery of pathology services.
Client
National Healthcare Diagnostics Provider (Confidential)
Project duration
6 Months
Deliverables
- Mobile Website
- Desktop Web App
- Design System
- Marketing Collateral
- Training manuals
My contribution
- Under supervision of Design Director, led the delivery of experience design
- Led creation of foundations to a multi-brand Design System
- Workshop facilitation (Co-lead)
- Led concept development
- Customer research (Co-lead)
- User testing (Co-lead)
Problem / Challenge
The business’s read was simple: falling referral volume, a leakage problem. The real story was two systems quietly failing on either end of the same journey. Telehealth consultations were half as likely to convert to a completed referral as face-to-face ones, referrals were printed, scanned, and emailed with no visibility into how many even landed. Meanwhile phlebotomists were drawing blood from a complex, unpredictable caseload with almost no support: no case visibility, thin training, patients arriving unprepared.
Approach
We built two connected deliverables. A digital referral, issued straight from the GP’s system to the patient’s phone, replacing the print-scan-email chain. And a collections portal, giving staff the tools paper never could: no more handwriting labels in duplicate, tube-by-tube draw order built in, a test reference on tap instead of a wall poster. Testing pushed both further: referrals had to work as SMS text, not email links, for patients without reliable data, and the code had to be visible without opening anything. Patients, it turned out, wanted to understand their tests, not just receive them.
Outcome
The work reached a validated, pilot-ready state and was handed to the client’s internal teams, with a set of digitally mature centres lined up to pilot it. What happened after that handoff isn’t something I have visibility into, that’s consulting. What I can stand behind: a broad, ambiguous brief turned into a specific answer for the people writing referrals, and the people standing in a small room all day, drawing blood, with sore hands and no computer.
