Discovery
We talked to Clinicians and subject matter experts who were deep in the mental health space. We heard that patients generally get fantastic care for their primary medical condition, but in-between treatments and follow-ups is where patients are at risk of falling through the cracks. Mental and physical setbacks can go undetected. Patients can be on their own dealing with significant life changes for weeks or even months. In order to treat patients more holistically, doctors need better monitoring and communication with their patients.
Opportunity
Use technology (specifically mobile and wearables) to track patients well-being over time. Allow Clinicians to monitor their patients and intervene as needed. Additionally, with more data comes the chance to find correlations between patient activities and well-being. This will help give patients the real insights to help improve their overall health.
MVP
We began this project before the first Apple Watch was officially released. To prepare, we studied Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and early preview documentation to understand the platform’s constraints and emerging best practices. While wearables are powerful, user engagement is fundamentally different from traditional devices. With that in mind, the Watch app focused on lightweight interactions, notifications, and passive data tracking. The iPhone served as the hub for the patient experience. It captured all Watch interactions, supported direct input, and leveraged the larger form factor to provide a centralized resource library and more detailed progress tracking.
Clinician Dashboard
We worked with Product Owners and Clinicians to create a hub to access patient data. Doctors found it valuable to see a broad view of their patients well-being as well as quick access to specific patients.
Outcomes
The emPower project was the first real-world test for Polaris in extending behavioral health monitoring outside of the Dr’s office. By all accounts it was considered a huge success and a monumental first step for Polaris.
Pilot program successful
Set the stage for Polaris to tackle primary care
Patients reported “seeing patterns in how their body and their mind is behaving throughout treatment”
- Linda Gaylord-Quann
Related Work
The emPOWER pilot program was just one part of integrating technology into behavioral health.
