Less Portal. More Care.
A Simpler Patient Portal for Faster Access to Care
- My Role
- Self-initiated redesign of Sutter Health’s appointment experience. Evaluated three navigation models and prototyped a task-first portal centered on booking care.
Independent concept based on a review of Sutter Health’s appointment experience. Not commissioned by or affiliated with Sutter Health.
Problem
Patients often use portals while sick, stressed, or short on time. In the existing experience, appointment tasks compete with the portal’s many other features, increasing the effort needed to find and book care.
How might booking become the clearest next action?
Discovery
My review identified three needs: make priorities visible, keep care context together, and offer guidance without hiding essential tasks behind chat.
Next Best Action
Makes the patient’s most important task immediately visible.
Patient Care Journey
Keeps visits, results, and next steps in context.
Guided AI Concierge
Provides optional help when patients are unsure what to do.
For the prototype, I combined visible priorities, care-journey context, and optional guidance, then focused the experience on appointment booking.
What Changed.
- Reorganized the dashboard around patient tasks rather than health-system categories.
- Elevated appointments, check-in, results, messages, and refills into prioritized updates.
- Made booking a prominent, guided flow with assistance available when needed.
Outcome: a functional prototype that surfaces priority tasks and starts booking from one home screen.
