{"id":4250,"date":"2016-11-01T10:09:34","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T10:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=4250"},"modified":"2020-08-12T18:11:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T17:11:02","slug":"echo-designing-disrupt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/echo-designing-disrupt\/","title":{"rendered":"Echo: Designing to Disrupt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medication management is an area where disruption is long overdue. Despite best efforts, GP practices and pharmacies are still very much paper-based operations, where the fax machine reigns supreme. Echo<\/a> has the answer to the frustrating, analogue process of ordering repeat prescriptions. In a sensitive industry where trust is not easily won, how does one design to disrupt?<\/p>\n

Sai Lashimi, CEO, and Stephen Bourke, CXO, have both been taking repeat prescriptions throughout their lives and have devised an app to facilitate the communication, ordering and delivery of medication. The free app enables you to order repeat prescriptions from your NHS GP and have medication delivered to your door by a community pharmacy. It also incorporates reminders which automatically tell you when to take your medication and when you're about to run out.<\/p>\n

We spoke to Sai, Stephen and their UX Designer Oykun Yilmaz, about their startup story, their design process, how they hire and challenges they\u2019ve faced.<\/p>\n

The concept of this app could be life-changing, how did you come up with the idea?<\/h2>\n

Sai: Stephen and I both take repeat prescriptions and have done so for most of our lives. We know the frustrations of our audience, particularly those with busy lives. We originally started working on how we could solve a problem of inconvenience, but have since discovered that the real problem we\u2019re solving is medication adherence, or in plain English, \u201cHow do we get people to take their medication as per their GP\u2019s instructions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the UK\u2019s Department of Health, between one third and half of all medications aren't taken properly. This is a major issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI'm not a doctor, but I have a PhD in being a patient.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Stephen: Sai and I were introduced by a mutual friend. Sai was working for Apple and I was running a successful online doctor practice. I saw the potential for digital innovation in the NHS and thought, \"I need a partner.\" Sai, likewise, had been thinking about how to fix repeat prescription management since 2010. We got together and, within months, had both quit our jobs and got started on Echo.<\/p>\n

Are there any other problems your app addresses and solves for the user?<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhat we want to do is create an open, transparent digital dialogue between the GP, the pharmacist, and the user in order to really optimize care and make it as efficient as possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephen: The first step is establishing what medications you take. A lot of people don\u2019t know that name of medication they\u2019re on. For instance, Salbutamol, a popular asthma treatment, is also known by its trade name Ventolin, or simply \u201cthe blue inhaler\u201d.<\/p>\n

To solve this we've built a huge, bespoke database of all the potential medications available on the NHS and broken it down into plain English. We've linked this database to the barcodes you find on the side of boxes of medicine, and have also built an advanced OCR scanner so that you can take a photograph of the box and it\u2019ll tell you the medication you\u2019re on. That means that, even if you don't know what you're taking, we will.<\/p>\n

Sai: The second thing was to make the order process as transparent as possible. As a user, I don't really care about what's going on in the background. I just want to get my meds on time. So we handle the integration with the GP\u2019s systems via our back-end. We also use a bespoke natural language processing algorithm to convert GP directions to reminders, nudging people towards better medication adherence.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHow we will win as a business and how we will create the most value is by focusing on experience.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

We are fortunate to be working with an incredibly talented team, with the right specialised skills to build the best experience for our customers. For instance, our Product Manager is a qualified NHS doctor, and makes sure that everything we do exceeds NHS clinical standards. Likewise, our Lead Dev has come from Skype and has a wealth of experience building robust, communication platforms.<\/p>\n