NAG HEADACHE TOOL

This project addresses the difficulties Swedish physicians face in the performance of headache care at primary health care centers. The current system is complex and modern workflows suffer from financial, political, communicational and time-related shortcomings. These are factors that decrease the possibility to provide equal headache care across the country. By conducting interviews, literature studies, and adopting a human-centered iterative design process, I targeted several critical areas. Knowledge regarding headache disorders is lacking, there is an absence of national knowledge guidelines for nurses to rely on, and the trust in Swedish healthcare has decreased over the last decade. Aforementioned factors are only a small selection of improvement areas that the project focuses on. 

The result of the human-centered design process is NAG Headache Tool. A digital diagnostic tool that with a holistic perspective addresses and improves situations in several critical areas of Sweden’s headache care. NAG Headache Tool facilitates primary care physicians’ work before, during, and after the appointment. This is accomplished by features such as a pre-filled patient questionnaire, national headache knowledge guidelines, inviting patients to visually mark their pain area, and a headache diary. The system features of NAG Headache Tool aim to increase the accuracy of headache diagnosis and treatments. NAG Headache Tool also contributes to facilitated epidemiological studies of headache disorder mapping by data storage. In addition to optimizing the workflows of physicians, the NAG Headache tool will likely have positive effects on patients’ trust in and experience of primary care. The project will hopefully serve to increase the understanding of headache disorders, which in term may serve to decrease the social and work-related challenges of patients suffering from headache disorders.

Keywords: healthcare, headache, experience design, UX/UI, medtech