The shift before we shipped this, I watched a tech discharge a dog with three meds in seven minutes. Most of that time was tapping. Owner info, twice. Med dose, three times. "Confirm." "Confirm." "Confirm." By the end the owner was visibly bored and the tech was apologizing.
I didn't redesign the discharge flow. I sat behind techs for two months and counted taps.
The four taps that mattered
- 1. Tap the patient (already on the screen — we removed the search step).
- 2. Tap "Discharge."
- 3. Tap each med to add or accept; doses pre-fill from the SOAP.
- 4. Sign once. The owner gets the SMS, the printer gets the home-care card, the chart closes.
Everything else got merged into one of those taps, or removed. The acknowledgment dialogs we used to show? Gone. The auditor doesn't need a click; the audit log already records the action.
What we removed
A confirmation dialog before sending the SMS. A required free-text "discharge instructions" box (now pre-filled from the SOAP, editable). The five-step recheck-scheduling wizard (now: "Recheck in 14 days" is one tap; reschedule with one drag).
With doses pre-filled from the SOAP, a three-med discharge collapses to four taps — the owner leaves while the dog is still wagging.