Recuro Health
Medicine, meet design.
Recuro Health’s mobile application is a one-stop-shop for holistic healthcare navigation. It helps employees quickly access care while enabling employers to reduce healthcare costs and improve employee well-being.
Want a quicker project overview? Check out the slide deck here.
Overview
Role: Design Lead | Duration: 3 months
Team: Director of Product, Developers, COO/CEO, Medical Director
The challenge
Recuro Health, a growing startup, gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic as the need for accessible healthcare increased. Primary care providers were scarce, and patients faced long wait times—sometimes up to six months—for appointments. Additionally, existing care navigation models and digital health products were often confusing, inaccessible, or not covered by employers.
The opportunity
We saw an opportunity to streamline care navigation by creating a one-stop-shop mobile app that:
Allowed patients to schedule appointments with their providers
Monitored care and facilitated follow-ups
Provided easy access to employee benefits, insurance information, and ID cards
Integrated with wearables for real-time health tracking
Beyond improving patient and provider experiences, investors recognized the potential of telehealth and care navigation in both B2B and B2B2C models, fueling further innovation and expansion.
Impact
💰 ✅ Secure the bag
8million
in investment within one month of the new app's introduction to investors.
ENTERPRISE INTEREST
WHITE-LABELING OPPORTUNITIES
POSITIVE USER FEEDBACK
Kickoff
The first step was aligning with stakeholders to ensure a shared understanding of our goals. My initial task was to create a visual timeline, plan the schedule, and develop early concept sketches.
Discovery
Next, I moved into the discovery phase. Drawing from my nursing background, I conducted field research alongside desk research, competitive analysis, qualitative studies, and heuristic evaluations of existing products.
Competitive analysis
I often look to other industries for inspiration. Users may not be familiar with the telehealth model for seeing a doctor, but they likely understand online shopping or their mobile calendar.
This raises the question: How can we incorporate familiarity and certainty into an otherwise uncertain experience?
View my competitive analysis and product inspiration, here.
Desk research
My desk research is thorough and covers a wide range of topics, from neuromarketing and behavioral design to the latest UI trends. I also explore how to blend popular and emerging design practices with medical and governmental regulations, ensuring a secure, trustworthy, and delightful user experience.
Strategy
When it came time to strategy, I ensured product meets user needs by:
Personas & User Journeys: Mapped out patient experiences to identify pain points
User Stories: Developed narratives that prioritized patient needs
Concept Validation + Design
The design process was rigorous, involving multiple design cycles, a product and feature roadmap, and validation through:
Wireframes & Prototypes: Five iterative design cycles, incorporating design systems
Socialization : Gathering feedback through stakeholder and ecosystem stakeholder workshops
Usability & A/B Testing: Ensuring that our understanding of user pain points was addressed
Benefits: Access your employer benefits, including employee information, insurance details, and ID cards.
Get Care: Easily schedule appointments for behavioral health, primary care, or urgent health concerns.
My Health: Take control of your care through Health Journeys and your Health Profile, where you can view trends, track progress, access your care plan, and communicate directly with your care team. Plus, we integrate with wearables for real-time health tracking.
“This app feels like it was built with the patient in mind.”
- Usability tester
Dev Relay
Were’ almost there!
When it came time to send it, I partnered with developers to ensure feature viability within project timelines. And like with most projects, there were some limitations to what could be accomplished. For example:
Iterative Problem-Solving: Version 1 couldn't support all planned features due to development constraints, so I went back to the drawing board to simplify the experience.
Overcame Challenges: My beloved search functionality had to be postponed, this had me rethinking how users navigated the app and how we could harvest data in other ways.
Optimization
What’s next?
Implement and enhance postponed features, such as:
After-visit summaries: Provide patients with clear next steps post-appointment.
Search functionality: Track data for user behavior insights and personalized recommendations (e.g., Amazon-style predictive search).
💡 B2B2C Expansion: Leverage analytics to personalize care navigation for individual users while maintaining enterprise partnerships.
Refletion and Learnings
Designing for healthcare is about balancing complexity with clarity. This project reinforced the importance of empathetic design, cross-functional collaboration, and adaptability—key skills I bring to every project I take on.
Challenges + Solutions
⚠ Healthcare regulations & compliance—We collaborated with legal and medical experts to align the UI with EMR (Electronic Medical Records) systems while maintaining usability.
⚠ Technical limitations on feature implementation—We pivoted by launching a lean MVP, ensuring a strong foundation for future optimizations.
What worked well
✔ A clean, modern UI that delivered a simplified and delightful healthcare experience.
✔ A human-centered approach that resonated with patients and employers alike.
Start small. Send it. Iterate. Optimize and Advocate.