CareAccess

Framing the Problem

• What is the problem you are trying to solve?

People struggling with less accessible online forms that are necessary to complete in order to be seen by a GP.

• Who does it affect?

Elderly people, people with accessibility needs like hardness of hearing and impaired vision, people with English as their non-primary language.

Idea Explanation

• What is your idea? How does it fix the problem?

Improve the existing system by implementing accessibility features to make the filling of online forms easier for more people. These include:

1. Provide translation of the online form in more languages, using Google Cloud Translation API

2. Section asking if the patient requires a translator

3. Allowing the user to fill out the form in their native language

4. Flag patients that may need a translator on the doctor's side

5. Visible button on every page to increase font size

6. Text-to-Speech toggle feature, powered by Speechify API

7. Appointment updates sent both to patient and their carer

These features solve the problem in a number of ways:

1. Forms becoming accessible to people with accessibility issues and those who may struggle with navigating the internet

2. Reducing the need to call the surgery directly, which in turn improves productivity and reduces the waiting times

3. Improving patient-doctor communication by allowing the patient to describe the problem clearly in their native language

4. Improving user satisfaction overall

• How do all the pieces fit together? Does your frontend make requests to your backend? Where does your database fit in?

The pieces fit together by being all on one page and same online form provided by Accurx; the user does not need to install an extension on their browser to access these features. The frontend would be developed in React, for an accessible and responsive UI. For the backend, Node.js was chosen to handle the logic between the user and the GP database. The translation API would be used in a way that is DSPT compliant, to ensure no patient-identifiable information is stored by the third-party API.

• What did you struggle with? How did you overcome it?

Our team struggled to come up with a practical idea for a long time. It was hard to find a problem as the existing online forms worked quite well for a lot of people. It was hard to identify the target audience at first, but then after a lot of research, we found a few arcticles where older people aged 75+ expressed their struggle with accessing basic needs like healthcare as most GP surgeries now enforce online forms instead of calling the surgery directly. Our task became clear: make healthcare accessible for those who struggle navigating the digital world. We reflected on our personal experiences with filling out the forms to get an appointment and identified some features that could be improved.

The most frustrating challenge was the time constraint: it was almost the end of the day by the time we finished discussing everything and finally thought we had something useful. The most important part of the project - implementing the solution, was going to be impossible before the deadline. We decided to work efficiently to put idea onto paper and visualise what we had in mind, using Canva and Figma.

Accomplishments

• What did you learn? What did you accomplish?

Good things take time. If you are passionate about an idea, you don't want to rush it and come out with a product that doesn't have all the features or some that don't work correctly. It is important to manage the time you are given, otherwise everything else just crumbles apart.

We accomplished a lot over the weekend, forming a connection within our team, coming up with an idea and executing it together. We split our tasks evenly, ensuring everyone was contributing to the project. We learnt how to efficiently work together towards a shared goal.

By making Accurx more accessible, we improved how communication flows across healthcare and decreased many challenges that people struggle with when booking a doctor's appointment, something that should be easy for everyone.

Next Steps

• What are the next steps for your project? How can you improve it?

Building the solution, implementing the features into the online form and performing rigorous testing, to ensure all components function correctly. It is very important to ensure any new features that are added, are compliant with all data legislation to ensure user privacy isn't breached.

A feature that could be added to further improve accessibility is Integrating with smart speakers (Alexa/Google Home) so users can 'speak' their request and fill out the form without needing to touch a screen at all. Implementing post-appointment support in the form of a text message sent to the patient could be another way to improve connectivity, ensuring the patient has an opportunity to express any concerns if their problem wasn't solved. Adding a micro-survey at the end , eg. 'Was this form easy to use?' can be a good way to gather data on whether the accessibility features actually reduced user friction.