{"id":28,"date":"2026-06-03T19:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T09:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/?p=28"},"modified":"2026-06-03T19:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T09:59:18","slug":"paper-prototyping-a-way-to-rapidly-iterate-your-processes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"Paper prototyping: a way to rapidly iterate your processes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A very useful and cost effective exercise for any clinical or administrative environment to do is paper prototyping<\/em>. This is the idea that basically anyone can make a rough sketch<\/em>; and it helps make the most important information shine through<\/em>. The cost of this is your own personal time, and rudimentary materials. The cost of custom software development – even in the age of AI – is several orders of magnitude higher<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally in software design; paper prototyping has a focus strongly on the design and user experience aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Administrative and clinical teams though have a leg up – think about the mere act of attending a GP’s office; billing and claiming or clinical assessments – often your organisation is already<\/strong> experienced in the required information architecture in many areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For teams looking for efficiencies; before anyone reaches for a software solution; it’s often best to start from the tail end<\/em> of your process and work in reverse order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. I am on the discharge team, I need to know recently discharged patients aren’t experiencing problems\n
      \n
    • I can make sure there is a comprehensive discharge plan\n
        \n
      • Do I know the intended location of the patient after discharge?<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Do I know the support services available in that area?<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Is everything financial sorted out, to the level any billing and claiming can be accurately done?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • I can make sure this is communicated to the wider care network – GP, uploaded to My Health Record, patient facing versions provided directly\n
          \n
        • Do I know if the original referral is the best point of contact?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        • I am on the clinical care team, assessing if someone is ready for discharge\n
            \n
          • Do I have the full picture on their treatment?<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Do I know about risks, alerts, allegies, medications, risks, MROs, or any wider care plan?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • I am the treating clinician\n
              \n
            • Do I have the full picture of the history<\/em>, so I can provide treatment?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • I am the intake team\n
                \n
              • Do I have everything to know the patient can be admitted and treated?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                What often happens is the teams next to each other in the process interface frequently; and immediate handover between them is well understood. But the common refrain becomes about the suspected inadequacy teams a step removed – why didn’t those gooses in team X ask about thing Y; it’s just making my job harder and I need to chase them!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                This is where “paper prototyping” can pay off heavily. Take yourself through the full patient journey. Carry copies of the various paperwork with you, compare that with what your organisation hands over between parties. Every time you notice a gap; explore if it could be asked and answered earlier – then simply update the relevant paper form<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Keep iterating. You might find you add a data point to a form for one team, only to move the data capture forward the following week as you realise its the team one step further up the chain who can complete it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                What if I’ve already optimised my paper processes?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                At this point, you have a well defined model of your patient journey. You are ready to look at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                  \n
                1. What would I ask or communicate; if the costs of doing so weren’t high? (Practical example: mailing out a post treatment survey is unlikely to garner a response by mail; but an SMS or email asking the same questions has lower friction for all parties)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                2. How much value does the paperwork generated have, if a clear and standard patient label is affixed to it?\n
                    \n
                  • What if that label had a barcode; so if I get a later system it is easier to automatically associate with a patient record?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                  • What if that label had a QR code; so that a later system recognizes not only the patient this is related to, but the clinician or document type?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                    My vendor says I don’t need to do this<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                    Often a narrative pushed by solution providers is to “simply do it their way”. You may be tempted to initially – after all, aren’t they the experts with multiple successes under their belts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                    Be aware this is often not the case: a vendor’s staff are not seeing patients or clients; are a rotating cast of individuals, and except in rare cases not backed by evidence based research or methodology. They may have insights you have not considered; but this should be in the context of your care model and applied incrementally, with carefully measurement of outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    A very useful and cost effective exercise for any clinical or administrative environment to do is paper prototyping. This is...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthdelivery.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}