Jackie Nam, Product Designer
Chapter 3 · A doctor at the visit

Chapter 3

NYU Langone Cardiovascular Risk Hub

Heart risk data is scattered across the EHR, so preventive care gets missed. With SoDEC’s Nudge Unit, I designed the Cardiovascular Risk Hub, a dashboard prototype now in testing with providers.

Role
UX Designer: research and UX design
Tools
Claude Code, Figma
Team
SoDEC’s Nudge Unit: Dr. Adam Berman, Nicole Redfern, April Chien
Timeline
2026 to present

Parts of this project are under NDA, so some screens, data and details are left out or simplified.

Jackie, at the bottom left, presenting from her laptop to a conference room of colleagues watching two wall screens.That’s me, presenting!

The Problem

Only 44% of US adults who qualify for a statin to prevent heart disease take one. Part of the reason is the visit itself. To see a patient’s risk, a doctor gathers numbers from across the EHR, enters them into an outside calculator, and checks the result against guidelines that keep changing. It takes time a visit doesn’t have.

“All of my patients’ data is scattered everywhere.”

A provider

“There are always new updated guidelines that I need to remember.”

A provider
Problem statement

How might we give clinicians a unified view of cardiovascular risk at the point of care?

Research

Six interviewee avatars — three primary care providers and three cardiologists — around sticky-note quotes: “All of my patients data is scattered everywhere”, “There are always new updated guidelines that I need to remember”, and “It’s important that all the information is easily accessible”
Interviewed 3 cardiologists and 3 primary care providers to find workflow pain points.

I mapped what providers told us to a nudging framework: for each barrier, the smallest change to the setting that makes the right action the easy one.

What we heardBarrierNudgeIn the Hub
“All of my patients’ data is scattered everywhere.”Hunting across the EHRMake it easyRisk factors in one place
Doctors re-enter values into outside calculators.Extra steps for every patientDo it by defaultA score calculated from Epic data
“There are always new updated guidelines that I need to remember.”Remembering at the wrong momentPrompt at the point of decisionThe next step, with its guideline reason
An illustration of the mapping, not the working document.

Design Decisions

Lead with the Next Step, Not the Data

Considered
Open each patient on their risk score and the data behind it.
Chose
Open each patient on the recommended next step, with the score and its reasons just below.
Why
At the point of care every second counts. A doctor needs to know what to do before why.

Prototype in Code

Considered
A clickable Figma prototype.
Chose
A working prototype built with Claude Code.
Why
Stakeholders clicked through real states rather than pictures of them, so their feedback got specific.

The Design

Designed for providersGuideline Based Recommendations, Each patient's next step appears in plain language, with the clinical reason and goal, so doctors can decide at a glance.
Designed for providersRisk Score, Already Calculated, Heart risk scores calculate automatically from Epic data, so doctors no longer re-enter values into outside tools.
Designed for providersRisk Beyond the Score, Risk factors buried in EHR notes appear in one place, showing the full picture behind each patient's score.

Next Steps

The Hub is in testing with providers now.

  1. Test Version 2 with ProvidersFind which layout works best for them.
  2. Validate the Customized ViewSee whether it meets each specialty’s needs or adds friction.
  3. Move Toward the EHRMap which data the Hub can pull from Epic.

Reflections

Frameworks Turned Quotes into Decisions
Mapping interview themes to nudges gave each design choice a reason clinicians could trust.

Notes

  1. Anderson TS, Wilson LM, Sussman JB. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2024: 44.1% of US adults eligible for a statin to prevent heart disease reported taking one.