elaine2018 / careguru

MSTU Final Project

Overview

CareGuru aims to introduce the U.S. healthcare system to people who are not familiar with it, especially international students. Over the years, we always hear people complaining about waiting for hours in the emergency room or getting ridiculous bills after a hospital visit. Our web application aims to help these students to learn the healthcare system in the U.S. so that they can avoid such inconveniences and confusions.

Learning Problems & User Needs

To most people, the most important thing they need to understand is how to find the proper care when necessary, and how much they need to pay for these cares and medicines they receive. The lack of understanding to the U.S. healthcare system will cause two problems:

1. When seeking health care service, people can not find the most appropriate healthcare provider. Going to the wrong provider causes delays in treatments, unnecessary pain, and threats to patients’ well being.
2. Each year, people pay a high price for their insurance policies. However, not knowing how to utilize their insurance benefits makes these people wasting their money on not only the insurance but also on their healthcare bills. Furthermore, not informed about their benefits may result in missing recommended screenings and vaccines, which pose risks to their health.

People get confused by the U.S. system because of many reasons, and through interviews and empathy studies, we found the leading causes are as follow:

1. Insurance companies, health care providers, and government agencies use special terminologies when writing documents and communicating with the public. However, the general public doesn’t necessarily understand these terminologies, and therefore won’t understand these communications.
2. Even if people find the definitions of these terminologies, many of them still don’t understand how these terms apply to them under different circumstances. Moreover, it’s hard to link parts of their knowledge about the healthcare system to situations they are facing in real life practices.
3. To international students or other new immigrants, the healthcare systems in their home countries are very different with the U.S. system. Such differences add to their misunderstandings and confusions.

Design document

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n5ivJIUsFRPMTxvIeZ3r1AL_oNBEzNLtmA4USUXq4P0/edit#heading=h.z6ne0og04bp5

Prototype

Check it out!

https://xd.adobe.com/view/0b9e0f4a-5e40-4e36-5a0b-553ab0c7436d-7daf/

Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/79RVJWZ