Meridian Health, clinic network
Booking a doctor in two minutes, not nine
Meridian runs 22 clinics. Their booking flow had grown to 14 steps, and a third of patients gave up and phoned instead. We rebuilt it around the question patients actually arrive with: "Who can see me, and when?"
The brief
Call centre volume was rising 18% a year, and the board wanted to know why patients weren't booking online. Analytics showed people reached the booking page; they just didn't finish.
We sat in three clinics and the call centre for a week. Patients didn't know which kind of appointment to choose, and the old flow asked them that first.
Constraints
- The scheduling system is a 15-year-old on-premise product with a slow, rate-limited API.
- Many patients are over 65 or booking for someone else, often on a phone.
- Legal required WCAG 2.2 AA and full audit trails for every booking change.
What we did
Start with the symptom, not the department
Patients now describe what's wrong in plain words, and we suggest the right appointment type. Receptionists helped us write the mappings, from "my back hurts" to the right clinician.
Four steps, each on one screen
What you need, where, when, and who you are. Times load from a cache we refresh every 60 seconds, so the old API never makes a patient wait.
Tested with the people who struggle most
Twenty-four moderated sessions, including screen reader and switch users and three participants over 80. We changed the design after every round.
Outcome
- median time to book, down from 9 minutes
- 2 min
- of bookings now made online, up from 38%
- 71%
- fewer calls to the booking line in six months
- −29%
The design sessions with our receptionists were the first time anyone had asked them how patients really talk. It shows in every screen.