Product
Heart+
Category
Healthcare · Clinical workflows
Redesigning cardiac transmission review around patient context and visible clinical evidence
HeartPlus supports technicians and physicians reviewing transmissions from implanted cardiac devices. When I joined as Senior Product Designer, the company was undertaking a platform-level redesign ahead of HRS 2026. The challenge combined a hard delivery window, a mature clinical workflow and a design team that needed more structure and confidence.
Validation in a specialist domain
The direction was refined across roughly five iterations through weekly reviews with Product and clinical subject-matter experts. Technicians immediately recognized the reduction in extra interactions, while physicians responded positively to the structured report presentation. At larger clinics, technicians could review approximately 100–120 transmissions daily, making small interaction costs significant at workflow scale. I did not run a formal time-on-task study and the redesigned Critical Summary was still being implemented when I left, so I would not claim a quantified productivity gain. The defensible outcome is simpler: the redesign reduced the number of interactions required to reach the clinical context needed to decide whether a transmission required physician review. Impact: lower interaction cost in a high-frequency clinical workflow; clearer information hierarchy; clinically reviewed design decisions; stronger design-team autonomy and organizational influence.
Reworking the core clinical workflow
I owned Critical Summary, the daily transmission-review journey. The legacy experience hid important information behind hovers and clicks, mixed clinical and general patient information, blurred actions with contextual navigation, and emphasized the transmission more than the patient. The redesign established an explicit reading order: - patient context first; - current transmission state before history; - interpretation beside supporting evidence; - and clear primary, secondary and tertiary actions. Information that previously required interaction became visible by default, while recognizable clinical sections were retained to respect users’ established mental models.
Creating a stronger design team
I led two designers without treating their existing product knowledge as something to replace. Instead, I introduced lightweight operating principles: focus on the current initiative rather than the intimidating deadline; understand requirements before designing; surface contradictions instead of guessing; and conduct internal design reviews before consuming PM capacity. Over time, reviews shifted from taste to behavior, scenarios and edge cases. The designers became more independent and more willing to challenge unclear requirements. The HR Manager and VP of Product separately acknowledged that Design had developed greater organizational presence, while PM reviews increasingly focused on evaluating solutions rather than explaining requirements.
