Pancreatic cancer trial finder

Background

This is one of the first projects and probably the longest running project I worked on while working in Springbox. They approached Springbox because they set a goal to increase the 6% survival of pancreatic cancer by the year 2020 and needed help achieving it. The first step was to build a robust, industry-first trial finder that would give patients and their doctors access to critical, clinical trial information when they need it most — the minute they’re diagnosed.

My role

I was happy to be able to start a project from scratch. Often that is not the case as I have to pick up work from other developers and organize/ clear files my way. I had the chance to work closely with designers to go through several approaches to find out the most effective one for patients to find trial they needed. Patients recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are overwhelmed. So the Trial Finder walks patients through a step-by-step form that gathers diagnostic information and matches them with clinical trials they might be eligible for.

Design process

User experience
We planned for a streamlined user experience catered to two primary audiences with disparate needs — patients and healthcare professionals. In-depth user flows were created to identify navigational necessities for both user groups. Before taking the tool to market, we also sent the tool through a series of beta tests. Insights gained from these tests helped the team to improve the user experience.

The campaign focused on the tool’s ease of use and strove to create hope through clinical trials.

Development
We created a custom API that brings the latest clinical trial information from the CTMS to patients and healthcare professionals through the new, publicly accessible Clinical Trial Finder. The tool also creates patient profiles that are then sent back into the CTMS database for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network team.

To make doctors and patients aware of this industry-first tool, we created an email and banner ad campaign to generate account creations.