Careteam Technologies was selected in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards for 2024, in the User Experience category as Honorable Mention, along with major companies such as Google, Samsung and Notion.

The Innovation by Design Awards honor the designers and businesses solving the most crucial problems of today and anticipating the pressing issues of tomorrow. The competition, now in its 13th year, features a range of blue-chip companies, emerging startups, and promising young talent. It is one of the most sought-after design awards.

“We have from day one considered making our user’s lives better as a key dimension of what we do: not focusing on innovation in the technology of our platform, but equally important to make it easier for the humans using it, the health care providers and the patients/ families.” said Dr. Alexandra T. Greenhill, the physician founder of Careteam. “This is the opposite of the healthcare user experience of the last two decades, where well intentioned but poorly designed health technology led to massive physician burnout and great frustration from patients. We are molding digital to enable better human connections on the path to better healthcare outcomes.”

The first two challenges were how to ensure that Careteam’s healthcare grade enterprise platform remains user-friendly and intuitive, despite its comprehensive functionalities and how to create a tool that clinicians use that also works for patients and families. Fuelled by the belief that simplicity and functionality must coexist in design, Careteam invested heavily in co-design with providers, patients and families, user testing and feedback, continually refining the interface for optimal user experience and increasing adoption and satisfaction from both patients/ families and clinicians. 
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The third challenge was related to how to add design elements that helped people using the platform who were usually stressed - patients and families living through some of the most difficult moments in their life and their healthcare providers, where over 50% are known to be dealing with burnout. Careteam is deployed to support complex chronic diseases such as Type 1 and 2 diabetes, cancer, aging at home, palliative care and mental health issues. The solution was to focus on the user experience in terms of tone of voice and use human created illustrations that stand out from the proliferation of generic or artificial intelligence (AI) generated images. Careteam invested in an original take on the style of the drawings, the choice of characters and scenes as well as the particular color palette. Depicting diversity goes to more than just gender and skin tone, it is also hairstyles, clothing and positioning. Working with Irene Neyman, a remarkably talented illustrator, who arrived in Canada escaping the war in Ukraine, led to the development of a unique collection of people and objects that add a human dimension to the digital environment. 

“This year’s honorees show how essential creativity is to the process of innovation,” said Brendan Vaughan, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “It’s inspiring to see how some of the best minds across industries are using design to shape our world for the better.”
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The judges of the 2024 Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards include renowned designers from a variety of disciplines, business leaders from some of the most innovative companies in the world, and Fast Company’s own writers and editors. Entries are judged on the key ingredients of innovation: functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural impact, and business impact.

Winners, finalists, and honorable mentions can be seen online on the Fast Company website https://www.fastcompany.com/91129827/user-experience-innovation-by-design-2024