Growth with patient families

In 2021, I led an initiative in digital health focused on patients undergoing growth hormone therapy. We wanted to understand the pain points of children, their families and healthcare providers (HCPs) and to make solutions that would alleviate their challenges and align with business goals and regulatory constraints.

Disconnect: digital health vs. patients

When I joined the project, the digital product roadmap revolved around of features driven by industry trends. They key issues were:

• Fragmented research leaving critical gaps in knowledge.
• Lack of a unified understanding of the patient journey.

This resulted in a roadmap solid on marketing, but lacking in patient needs and business goals.

Groundbreaking research on patient journey

I took lead in changing that narrative. My first step was auditing prior internal studies and scientific literature, synthesizing a cohesive foundation. To fill the gaps, I conducted interviews with families and HCPs, complemented by mini-surveys and usability tests. This helped me guide the team towards utapped opportunities:

• The first-ever patient journey map in this therapeutic area (see publication), highlighting critical phases: (1) Treatment initiation: Addressing early challenges like injection anxiety and skill-building. (2) Routine maintenance: Supporting long-term adherence and emotional well-being. (3) Transition to adolescence: Preparing teenagers to take ownership of their treatment.
• A unifying tool for workshops across digital health and medical affairs. This journey map became a cornerstone for strategy and design, aligning cross-functional teams and providing a “one-stop shop” for insights​​.

Focusing digital health strategy

Armed with these insights, I guided the team through a systematic strategy overhaul. I led workshops to align stakeholders, including medical, IT, regulatory, and product teams. Together, we transformed the roadmap into a cohesive vision. We focused on three key pillars:

1. Treatment initiation: Alleviating injection pain and anxiety, fostering routine-building habits.
2. Maintenance: Supporting long-term adherence through education, progress tracking, motivation, and accountability.
3. Adolescence transition: Equipping teenagers to take ownership of their treatment, supported by parents and HCPs​​.

We ensured that stakeholders were engaged with co-creation workshops, which helped build a sense of ownership and collaborative decision-making.

Designing with purpose and impact

We prioritized features that struck a balance between user impact, feasibility, and business value. We started by focusing on treatment initiation, given the formative role of this critical stage, where patients struggled the most. To tackle this we developed:

• Injection support: A mix of trusted advice to reduce pain and interactive lightweight reward for kids.
• Community connection: Anonymous interaction and multimedia stories shared between families, helping with mutual learning and bonding.
• HCP empowerment: Remote monitoring and visibility to practitioners, maintaining accountability, and improving communication​​.

I worked with designers and engineers to prototype and test with patients and HCPs across multiple iterations. The feedback helped us nail solutions with a 25% increase in patient and HCP satisfaction, and contributed to the +15% improvement in treatment adherence.

From journey to vision & design

Navigating the space between data, human stories, strategy, design and product governance, this initiative underscores the potential of user needs to shape design and strategy. This required a a careful choreography:

• Crafting the patient journey as a cohesive narrative, grounded in data yet easy to grasp, helped prioritize what mattered to patients and families.
• Building adoption requires operationalizing the narrative gradually, from intros to co-creation workshops, shaping strategy and design solutions.
• A good vision is itself a story that aligns short-term wins with long-term goals, and guides experiences that accompany patients in their treatment journey.