AI Notes: Streamlining Documentation for Healthcare Professions

HosTalky is an all-in-one communication platform addressing healthcare professionals' fragmented workflow by unifying messaging, notes, reminders, and announcements in one secure system.

As the lead product designer for this project at an early-stage startup, I created two AI-powered note features—Audio Transcribe and Text Extract—based on research with 77 healthcare professionals. These features address key documentation pain points, and enable healthcare workers to capture information efficiently without interrupting patient care.

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

RESPONSIBILITIES

Synthesize insights
Experience Strategy
Design Direction
Validation

TIMELINE

Sept - Nov, 2024

TEAM

2 Developers

enhancing healthcare documentation

From research insights gathered through 4 focus group interviews with 77 healthcare workers across Brazil and Canada, I identified these key challenges and opportunities:

Challenge

🌟

Streamline the note-taking process for healthcare professionals, so they don't interrupt patient interactions and reduce care quality.

Opportunity

💡

Enhancing the Notes feature by using AI that enables healthcare professionals to capture and organize clinical information more efficiently.

Healthcare documentation challenges
  1. Healthcare professionals operate in time-sensitive environments.

  1. But manual note-taking disrupts patient consultations and reduces patient
    interaction time.

  1. One of the focus group participants rated "Note Templates" as "VERY relevant" to their work.

  1. Healthcare workers prefer consolidated tools, with the "all-in-one approach" consistently rated as "VERY interesting" across all focus groups.

During the end of last year there were days when I had around 100 patients in a 12-hour shift.

A general physician in Brazil

  1. Healthcare professionals operate in time-sensitive environments.

  1. But manual note-taking disrupts patient consultations and reduces patient
    interaction time.

  1. One of the focus group participants rated "Note Templates" as "VERY relevant" to their work.

  1. Healthcare workers prefer consolidated tools, with the "all-in-one approach" consistently rated as "VERY interesting" across all focus groups.

During the end of last year there were days when I had around 100 patients in a 12-hour shift.

A general physician in Brazil

  1. Healthcare professionals operate in time-sensitive environments.

  1. But manual note-taking disrupts patient consultations and reduces patient
    interaction time.

  1. One of the focus group participants rated "Note Templates" as "VERY relevant" to their work.

  1. Healthcare workers prefer consolidated tools, with the "all-in-one approach" consistently rated as "VERY interesting" across all focus groups.

During the end of last year there were days when I had around 100 patients in a 12-hour shift.

A general physician in Brazil

Standard Notes: Missing Healthcare Context

The current Notes feature in HosTalky provides basic documentation capabilities with a clean interface. However, focus group feedback revealed significant limitations:

The participants considered the kit WEAK, stating that it needs some additional tools...

Atitus Focus Group Report

Current Notes Experience

This standard note-taking functionality requires manual typing, which disrupts patient interactions and doesn't address healthcare professionals' specialized documentation needs.

Enhancing Notes with AI

Create note prototype

Audio Transcribe

Record conversations and automatically convert
speech to text notes.

Text Extract

Uploading photos, taking photos, or uploading
documents to extract text and save it in Notes.

Transform speech into text notes instantly

The Audio Transcribe feature eliminates disruptive manual typing during patient consultations.

Healthcare professionals can maintain eye contact and build rapport while capturing detailed notes, addressing the critical
challenge of documentation without
sacrificing quality care.

Audio transcribe prototype

Upload methods prototype

Multiple ways to upload files for text extraction

The Text Extract feature offers 3 flexible input methods—upload files, take photos, or select from gallery—addressing the diverse documentation scenarios healthcare professionals encounter.

This versatility ensures critical information can be digitized regardless of its original format, reducing time spent switching between
different tools.

Instantly generate notes from images

The Text Extract feature converts handwritten or printed text from images into editable digital notes.

This eliminates tedious manual transcription from physical documents and reduces error risk, directly addressing healthcare professionals' need for efficient information transfer while working in time-sensitive environments.

Text extract prototype

From Focus Groups to AI-driven notes Features

My design process followed a structured approach from research synthesis to feature validation:

Usability Testing Approach

For the usability testing of the AI-powered note features, I am currently conducting a structured evaluation framework with 5-7 healthcare professionals across diverse roles and experience levels:

Testing Methodology

Think-aloud protocol

Task-based
scenarios

Moderated remote testing sessions

Evaluation Framework

Task completion success rates

Interface comprehension scoring

Error frequency and patterns

Time-on-task measurements

User confidence ratings

Expected Outcomes

Through this testing methodology, we aim to validate that the features will:

  • Healthcare professionals can intuitively extract text from various document formats with
    minimal learning curve

  • Voice-to-text transcription accurately captures clinical conversations in real-world settings

  • Both features seamlessly integrate into healthcare workers' existing documentation workflows

  • Areas for feature refinement are identified before full-scale implementation

Design Meets Company Strategy

This project reinforced my understanding of how effective design must align with business strategy to create meaningful impact.

By connecting our focus group insights about healthcare documentation challenges with the company's AI differentiation strategy, I was able to propose features that simultaneously addressed user pain points and supported business objectives. The process taught me to prioritize solutions at the intersection of user needs and strategic goals, rather than implementing every requested feature.

This approach not only streamlined development efforts but also created a stronger value proposition for healthcare professionals while positioning the product competitively in the market.