Redesigning the Medication Prescribing

As the Design Lead for the digitalization of electronic prescribing, I designed complex solutions to upgrade an enterprise clinical web application built on the openEHR standard and interoperable models, including FHIR and HL7.

Used directly by doctors, nurses, and pharmacists in high-pressure hospital environments, the platform digitizes complex medical data, eliminates cognitive overload, and reduces medication errors at the point of care. The platform is actively used in clinical settings across hospitals in the UK (NHS), Spain, Australia, and Slovenia (UKC Ljubljana).

The project encompassed a series of interconnected design iterations: from user research to implementation and on-site field testing. I collaborated closely with developers, product managers, clinical advisors, pharmacists, doctors, and nurses, both remotely and during field visit (e.g., Somerset NHS Foundation Trust).

1. Reducing Medication Errors at the Point of Care

GOAL: To reduce medication administration errors and incidents.

The visual system of warnings, interaction steps, and information architecture was entirely redesigned. It maintains strict safety standards (compliant with safety officer requirements) while enabling faster, more intuitive workflows for healthcare staff.
​

• Applying NHS guidelines for naming conventions, decimal places, and word breaking.

• Clear visual emphasis on dosages.

• Separating intervals and dosages from administration routes, introducing recognizable icons strictly for the most critical warnings.

• Clear visibility of past prescriptions that remain relevant when reviewing a patient's clinical picture.

• Implementing an "antibiotic days" counter to prevent prolonged, unsafe usage.

• Supporting a wide variety of complex prescriptions, from diluent combinations to variable dosing schedules.

Emergency Operations Solutions (Downtime)

GOAL: Ensure uninterrupted prescribing and medication dispensing during critical system failures.

Developed a comprehensive suite of printable materials and electronic fallback documents for scenarios involving power outages or critical system failures. This ensures uninterrupted prescribing and medication dispensing even in crisis situations, which is crucial for maintaining patient safety.

​

The challenge was to put only the most important things on paper but still allow nurses and doctors to document everything.

Specialized Support for Psychiatry

GOAL: Align prescribing workflows with local mental health legislation without slowing down care delivery.

Designed medical documents and prescribing interfaces specifically tailored for psychiatry in the UK market. This layout required strict adherence to local legislation such as the Mental Health Act while ensuring the interface remained fast and intuitive for doctors, specialists, pharmacists, and support staff.

Historical Treatment Timeline

GOAL: Improve the clinical management of time-critical medications.

Designed a specific history view providing a clear, chronological display of recent medication doses and time dependencies, and improved the administration timeline view. This feature optimizes tracking for highly sensitive drugs like insulin and antibiotics. Alongside the timeline, a detailed administration history overview was integrated to provide complete tracking transparency.

Advanced Prescribing for Vulnerable Groups

GOAL: Improve complex clinical dosing calculations for patient specifics (age, renal function,..)

Implemented robust UI support for prescribing medications to sensitive populations, such as pregnant women, nursing mothers, or patients with amputations. The interface safely handles intricate dosing adjustments based on ideal body weight calculations and custom medication compositions directly within the primary prescription flow.

Collaborative Prescribing

GOAL: Enable multidisciplinary hospital teams to work cohesively on a shared active treatment plan.

Designed a collaborative system allowing pharmacists, doctors, and nurses to safely interact with the same prescription across varying hospital workflows. Built around extensive user interviews with frontline medical staff, the design maps the complete lifecycle of prescription creation, review, and authorization, balancing absolute clinical safety rails with highly customizable operational rules.