High blood pressure is a silent killer. Measuring it is not the problem—rather, it’s the seemingly straightforward task of recording a patient's medical history over time that creates the biggest barrier to providing effective care.
It is in developing countries where this burden is most pronounced. Under huge demand, appointment times with patients can be under 4 minutes long, and the strain on clinicians to keep track of everything can be overwhelming.
In this episode we talk to Daniel Burka, Director of Design at Resolve To Save Lives, to discuss how designing a stripped back EMR (electronic medical record) with a healthy dose of essentialism is enabling healthcare workers to manage blood pressure at scale in India and beyond.
Timestamps
Implications of high blood pressure
Learnings from their first trip to Punjab
How the Simple app works
The bare minimum data needed for medical records
Having a strong user-research program
Getting the Simple app into the hands of clinicians
The Simulated Hypertension Clinic and learnings from their field research
Metrics they use to guide the design process
The challenges to workflow working at scale
Open-sourcing approach to break down silos in digital health
Next big steps for Simple
