the new experience of health insurance
Creating a future vision for Geisinger Health Plan through current and future state journey mapping.
the problemwhen the affordable care act went into law in 2010, it was clear to health insurance companies that patients’ expectations of health insurance companies would shift.
geisinger, a healthcare company, saw an opportunity to look across geisinger health system and geisinger health insurance to better meet the needs of patients and health insurance members in the local community and central Pennsylvania. but this felt daunting.
the opportunityred privet responded with one question: what could the future of health insurance look like for geisinger? and what steps would they need to take to get there?
the solutioncurrent state and future state journey maps of the experience of health insurance
Note: I’m unable to share the final journey maps but will show highlights along the project.
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Geisinger recruited leadership from across the company to observe and interact with current health plan members to map current state experiences and envision the future state of health insurance.
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Plan and facilitate current and future state journey maps with the project lead. Collaborate with a visual designer to create a set of current state and future state journey posters.
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November 2015 - June 2016
the ux process
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1. explore and refine: prioritize scenarios and create personas for focus
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2. ideate: envision the future of health insurance through workshopping
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3. deliver: find a way to make future state journey maps actionable
1. explore and refine: prioritize scenarios and create personas for focus
phase 1 outcomesAlign with Geisinger Health Plan’s stakeholders, including C-level executives, on the key scenarios and populations to target for journey mapping
Educate stakeholders on the purpose and value of journey mapping
Create a set of personas to drive our recruiting and journey mapping sessions
key activities
Assumptions gathering workshops with 10+ stakeholders aligning on the purpose, vision, and pain points of Geisinger Health Plan
Prepare for workshops with 15+ stakeholders and 50+ current Geisinger Health Plan insurance members
key finding: journey maps need specific personas to make the maps actionable
The biggest challenge starting the project was how we were going to design a better experience for 500,000+ members. The need to focus and prioritize which populations was key to creating specific, actionable journey maps. We went through a series of workshops, including assumptions gathering and persona creation, with stakeholders.
Ultimately, we created 4 personas across the 2 most important health insurance member population: medicare vs. private insurance and new members vs. existing members.
2. ideate: envision the future of health insurance through workshopping
phase 2 outcomesCreate 4 current state journey maps with health insurance members to capture the biggest challenges and opportunities for Geisinger Health Plan
Create 4 future state journey maps that envision the future of health insurance and identify first steps for the business
key activities
Conduct 10 workshops with health insurance members and stakeholders
Capture expectations and needs from health insurance members without asking “What do you want?”
key finding: when workshopping abstract concepts, use images as metaphors
Defining the future of health insurance could be started with the question, “What kind of relationship do health insurance members expect from their health insurance company?” Instead of conducting interviews, we used a method from “Gamestorming” that asked health insurance members to use images cut out from magazines to describe what they expect from their insurance company. Then, we used their work to drive a group discussion.
3. deliver: find a way to make future state journey maps actionable
Phase 3 outcomesDeliver 4 current state and 4 future state journey maps as posters
Create an action plan for Geisinger Health Plan to begin implementing ideas and measure their impact
key activities
Synthesize journey maps from workshops into journey map posters
Work with key Geisinger departments to create a measurements and metrics plan to identify where to measure improvements
Key finding: journey maps excite folks, but measurement plans give businesses the confidence to implement ideas
Our C-level stakeholders felt invigorated by the journey mapping with health insurance members, but they were concerned about whether they’d know if the changes made were actually making a difference with health insurance members. We went through a series of sessions with key departments walking through the Google HEART framework to map goals, signals, and metrics to each department’s KPIs and metrics.