UX Research : UnitedHealth Group

Project Overview

This project centers on the provider experience in partnership with United Health Care (UHC). Conducting over 40 targeted interviews with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Aggregators, internal health plan CEOs, and provider-centric teams, our team of four designed a comprehensive UX research strategy. Our aim is to uncover healthcare providers' needs to inform and develop an effective customer success strategy.

• UX Researcher & Design Lead | Team of 4 | 7 Months
• Services: UX Research | Brand Strategy | UX Design
• Industry: Healthcare

Research Objectives

Investigating Provider Support and Partnership Tools

United Health Care (UHC) is re-evaluating how they support and partner with providers, starting with a provider outside-in approach. To enhance these partnerships, UHC has engaged a team of human-centered design experts.

Identifying Gaps in Care and Opportunities

Our goal is to uncover opportunities for improving provider partnerships by analyzing the provider experience when collaborating with UHC. We focus on meeting provider needs throughout value-based contracts (VBC) and closing gaps in care.

Design Challenge

We aim to gather and analyze new data to understand why UHC is not currently leading in provider engagement experiences. This research will guide us in identifying key areas for improvement and developing actionable solutions to enhance provider partnerships.

Project Findings

Interview Key Insights: The Optimal Provider Experience

• Real-time Patient Data: Facilitate real-time access to patient data, including demographic, clinical, and social determinants of health, to support real-time analytics and decision-making.
• Identification of Gaps in Care: Develop analytical tools that provide actionable insights for providers.
• Standardized Data Formats: Ensure consistent patient data formats, such as HL7 FHIR, to facilitate easy integration and interpretation of member data.
• Interoperability: Improve communication to better support the FQHCs' internal processes alongside UHC's platforms for seamless patient data sharing.

Partnership Recommendations

• Actionable Data: Standardize data formats and ensure real-time access.
• Customized Data Sharing & Integration: Develop data integration tools to enhance interoperability and stratification support.
• Transparent Value-Based Contracts: Improve outcomes, build trust, and reduce overhead through targeted success metrics.

1. VBC Real-time Performance
   1. This feature allows providers to understand how closing gaps in care puts them on track to meeting their VBC performance goals.
   2. “When we don't succeed in our VBC, we ask ourselves if it truly was truly possible for the provider to win, and they didn't.”-FQHC Provider
2. Gap Identification
   1. Advanced analytics based on patient data help providers identify gaps in patient care, enabling proactive health management.
   2. “One of our challenges is having providers utilize our data, less than 50% are accessing the data."​-Insurance Company Stakeholder”
3. Population Health Risk
   1. Access to this feature on the homepage allows for quick evaluation of population health risk.
   2. “We need to know what the risk stratification of a member is from Insurance Companies cause is as a larger FQHC in Texas; we don't have all the tools and the ability to digest some of that data.” - FQHC Provider
4. Patient Admission Discharge Data
   1. Providers now have insight into patient admission, discharge, and transfer events. This helps prioritize follow-up to ensure care continuity.
   2. “Why don’t our providers get Admission, Discharge or Transfer data seamlessly?“ ​... “They do through 3-4 different channels, but they aren’t the channels they prefer to use.”​-Aggregator Provider

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