Context
Overview
I collaborated with product managers, engineers, and public agencies to develop a working MVP of CertSG, a certificate database and tracker created to address challenges in public hospitals.
Snippets of the final product
How it started
CertSG was developed during Open Government Product’s hackathon, where we collaborated with public agencies to address public challenges.
CertSG team with SingHealth
The problem
During the hackathon, hospital staff from SingHealth raised an issue around managing doctor certificates.
Hospital admins faced a time-consuming, manual process of sifting through a large database to update doctor certificates, while doctors often misplaced or allowed their certificates to expire due to poor record-keeping.
Hospital admins faced a time-consuming, manual process of sifting through a large database to update doctor certificates, while doctors often misplaced or allowed their certificates to expire due to poor record-keeping.
The current manual process for hospital admins increases the risk of human errors and strains resources. For doctors, missing or expired certifications can hinder their practice or worse, lead to legal complications.
Research
User research
After contacting healthcare groups like Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Changi Hospital Group, as well as individual doctors, we discovered they faced similar challenges.
We began by interviewing these two user groups to gain deeper insights into the problem. Additionally, we visited SingHealth's office for a shadowing activity to observe firsthand how admin staff manage doctor certificates.
key research insights
Based on our findings, I created two key user personas that outlined their pain points and tasks. These personas enhanced the team's understanding for our users which served as a reference during our ideation.
The overall process consists of five main stages, with key issues primarily arising in the last three.
We recognized that the challenges faced by hospital administrators and doctors are interconnected, reflecting two sides of the same issue, as summarized below.
Objectives
With about four weeks until the product demonstration, the team aimed to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) that could be quickly built, tested, and iterated. The MVP needed to achieve the following goals:
1. Unified certificate tracking platform for both admins and doctors
2. Intuitive method to track and update doctors' certificates
3. Reminder system for doctors regarding expiring certificates
Ideation
Brainstorming
With proper insights and clear objectives in mind, we embarked on the ideation phase to generate solutions for this problem, exploring diverse ideas across the five mentioned stages.
Snippets of our product flow ideation
After several rounds of ideation, we realized that addressing both groups' challenges simultaneously would be too ambitious for a month-long hackathon, so we decided to narrow our focus to the hospital administrators first.
We narrowed our focus to the stages below, as most challenges faced by hospital administrators were concentrated there.
Following that, we held additional rounds of ideation and sketching sessions during which the team began to outline low-fidelity design concepts and the necessary features.
Snippets of our ideation sessions
By referring to similar SaaS products, we learned how they structure complex information databases in a user-friendly way, which informed our own design decisions.
References to other SaaS products
Design
MVP design
CertSG was designed in two phases. In phase one, we developed an MVP to be tested during the Hackathon, enabling fast iteration and gathering stakeholder feedback.
We then conducted user testing with hospital administrators to validate the MVP’s effectiveness and presented it to stakeholders. These sessions allowed us to assess how well the product addressed existing pain points and identify areas for improvement.
Using this feedback, we refined the interface with improved visual design to elevate the user experience. While this second version was not developed, the initial MVP provided key insights for future iterations.
High-Fidelity design
From the user testing feedback, the functionality and visual design of the product was improved. While this second version was not developed, the initial MVP provided key insights for future iterations.
Certificate Dashboard
The platform features a dashboard that displays all existing medical certificates, allowing admins to navigate easily.
Dashboard displaying certificates
Clicking on a certificate enables admins to view specific details, including its description, admin permissions, and its validity period.
Detailed information for each certificate
Whitelisted admins can create new certificates, ensuring the platform remains up to date. The dashboard aims to promotes consistency in certificate types across departments and hospitals.
Creating new certificates
Certified Personnels
Admins can track which personnel have been certified under a specific certificates, enabling them to easily identify those with expiring certifications and notify them accordingly.
List of personnel registered with a specific certificate
To certify doctors, admins can simply enter their email addresses, streamlining the certificate update process compared to the previous method of searching for doctors' names in the database and manually adding new entries.
Certifying new personnel
Doctor dashboard
Admins can access a comprehensive personnel list, enabling them to monitor registered doctors and nurses on the platform. This feature allows quick tracking of specific individuals as needed.
List of registered personnel on the platform
Selecting a personnel profile opens a detailed dashboard, where admins can view information such as held certificates and past activities, supporting efficient oversight and management.
Detailed profile dashboard
Auto Reminders
Admins can set up auto-reminders for each certificate, sending emails to doctors a predetermined number of days before expiration. This feature replaces the manual process of checking each certificate's expiration date individually.
Auto-reminder function and reminder emails
A reminder email will notify doctors of their expiring certificates, and admins can customize the email template directly on the platform.
Certificate settings
Admins can adjust auto-reminder settings and update certificate details directly from the certificate settings page, streamlining certificate management.
Certificate setting pages
Conclusion
Impact
Before CertSG, hospital admins faced significant frustrations managing certificates, as outlined in the initial user journey map.
With the introduction of CertSG, we aimed to streamline their workflow. The updated user journey map illustrates how CertSG has reduced these pain points, improving the certificate management process for admins.
