Pancreatic Cancer Action Network: Clinical Trial Finder
The Clinical Trial Finder is a responsive web tool used to match patients and doctors to clinical trials using the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s expansive clinical trial database, giving increased access to those who need it most.
While incredibly complex given the nature of the information received and provided, the Clinical Trial Finder stands out as one of the most important projects I have had the opportunity to work on.
Providing Hope
A pancreatic cancer diagnosis is overwhelming to say the least and treatment can be limited. The Clinical Trial Finder walks patients through a step-by-step form that gathers diagnostic information and matches them with potentially life-saving clinical trials.
Project Complexity
There were several considerations when determining how to communicate with both medical professionals and patients/caregivers. Some of the major issues included:
Creating an experience that was simple enough for patients and caregivers to handle while still capturing the appropriate medical information to be useful to medical professionals.
Providing education without overwhelming the user with tooltips and notes to explain the intricacies of the use case.
Positioning PanCan as an ally to patients even if they were not eligible for any current trials.
Building the backend architecture in such a way that third party database changes could be accommodated quickly and easily.
Managing extensive technical content documentation, including matrices and style guides.
My Role: Experience Lead
As the Experience Lead on the project I had the opportunity to play a role in every aspect of the process. My responsibilities included:
Managing the Design and Development teams.
Leading daily scrum standup meetings.
Synthesizing user research results and defining product changes based on feedback.
Maintaining personas based on research and user needs.
Creating and maintaining thorough content models and matrices
Conducting extensive product testing with multiple audiences.
Leading client meetings to define the product roadmap.
Creating wireframes for new features and updates to existing product
Developing and maintaining user experience maps.
Writing design and development task tickets.
Empowering Patients
One of the main goals of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is to empower newly diagnosed patients to be in control of their own treatment and to increase their knowledge about the treatment landscape. Patients and caregivers can:
Search for treatment options based on multiple locations and the distance they’re willing to travel.
Provide only as much information as they have about their diagnosis. It was important to always a provide an option that didn’t require having a specific answer to complete the experience.
Access Patient Central representatives to receive further information about clinical trials and other programs available to patients.
Save trial information so that they can return at any time to review with physicians and their care team.
Educating Medical Professionals
The world of cancer treatment is constantly evolving. Medical professionals might not have a lot of historical knowledge of pancreatic cancer or easy access to the latest trials available to patients. The Clinical Trial Finder is meant to serve that audience is well so that they can help provide the best treatment possible.
The Results
Responsive design: Due to the inherent need to always have quick and easy access to information when dealing with a deadly disease, tablet and mobile experiences are a must-have.
Decreasing barriers to entry: Historically, information about trials had been provided by the PanCan outreach team through phone calls and mailings, thus they wanted users to create an account to use the product.—extensive testing proved account creation to be a huge barrier to entry. Not requiring a log in increased conversion from 6.8% to 94.4%.
Product evolution: Because of the successful launch of the first release, the client signed on for long-term enhancements and maintenance. The complexity of the product means that continual testing will inform improved functionality.
Connecting patients and doctors with treatment: The ultimate goal of the Trial Finder is to connect people with real-world trials. Analytics associated with survival can’t be tracked, but engagement with the organization has increased by 10% since the initial product release.
“Springbox committed to the design and development of our vision for the Clinical Trial Finder, turning something that was a complex idea into a reality… making it even better, bigger, and greater than anything we had envisioned.”
Porsha James
Senior Manager, Clinical Initiatives
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
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