The future of care: designing seamless digital healthcare experiences
How AI-powered design transformed 1.2M patient journeys
COMPANY / YEAR
Knok - 2021
INDUSTRY
Healthcare, Telemedicine
TIMELINE
12 months
By 2021, Knok’s platform supported over 1.2 million patients and operated across Europe, Brazil, and South Africa. This case study examines three core products that revolutionized digital healthcare delivery:
Project 1: AI-Powered Symptom Checker
Problem statement
During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems faced unprecedented strain as patients with non-urgent conditions struggled to access timely care. Providers encountered inefficiencies in managing consultations, often spending valuable time on basic symptom gathering instead of treatment. Without reliable pre-consultation data, workflows remained fragmented, while many patients unnecessarily turned to emergency services when telemedicine could have been a more suitable option.
Patients struggled to distinguish urgent from non-urgent symptoms
Many emergency visits were potentially avoidable through telemedicine
Consultations were dominated by symptom gathering rather than treatment
Providers lacked pre-consultation data to improve efficiency
User segments
Primary: Patients seeking immediate health guidance for non-urgent symptoms
Secondary: Healthcare providers requiring efficient patient triage
Tertiary: Healthcare insurers looking to reduce unnecessary emergency visits
Core features
An intelligent symptom interview, powered by a conversational AI interface, adapts its questions dynamically based on patient responses to capture accurate health information. This feeds into a risk assessment engine that evaluates urgency levels and supports effective triage. From there, care pathway navigation automatically directs patients to the most appropriate level of care, whether self-care, telemedicine, or in-person consultation. Finally, a pre-consultation data package compiles the gathered insights into a comprehensive summary, equipping healthcare providers with the information needed to deliver timely and focused treatment.
Process
Technical Integration
Knok integrated Infermedica’s clinical AI engine into its digital platform to enhance symptom analysis and patient triage. The solution ensured GDPR and HIPAA-compliant handling of sensitive health data, addressing both European and international regulatory requirements. Leveraging the API-first architecture, Knok implemented the system as a white-label solution, embedding the AI seamlessly into its existing workflows. As a result, patients received accurate guidance in their native language, while clinicians benefited from structured, pre-consultation data that streamlined care delivery.
Information architecture
The symptom checker followed a progressive disclosure pattern:
Initial symptom selection via body mapping or search
Contextual follow-up questions based on AI algorithms
Risk stratification and care recommendations
Seamless handoff to video consultation if required
UI/UX principles
Clarity: Medical terminology simplified for general public
Trust: Clinical accuracy indicators and transparency about AI limitations
Accessibility: WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance
Efficiency: Average session completion in under 4 minutes
Key design decisions
Clean, medical-grade interface with calming color palette (blues and whites)
Progress indicators to manage user expectations during assessment
Interactive body diagram for intuitive symptom location selection
Clear visual hierarchy separating user input, AI responses, and recommendations
Conversational flow mimicking natural patient-doctor dialogue
Smart suggestions reducing typing burden
Emergency escape routes for critical symptoms
Outcome
The AI-Powered Symptom Checker demonstrated high accuracy in symptom assessment, aligning closely with physician evaluations and supporting more reliable patient guidance. By reducing unnecessary emergency room visits, it helps ease the burden on healthcare systems while directing patients to more appropriate levels of care. Healthcare providers benefit from significantly faster pre-consultation preparation, as the solution collects comprehensive data points during each patient interaction. From a user experience perspective, the platform achieves strong satisfaction ratings, with patients consistently completing assessments and being guided toward the right care pathways. This not only enhances patient confidence but also streamlines provider workflows, enabling more focused and efficient consultations.
Reflections
Designing conversational flows that mimicked natural doctor-patient dialogue and integrating visual tools like interactive body mapping were crucial to reducing user anxiety and encouraging completion. Collaborating closely with engineers and clinical experts, I learned the importance of aligning design decisions with both regulatory standards and patient expectations.This project reinforced my belief that thoughtful design can transform intimidating healthcare processes into empowering digital experiences.
Project 2: Remote Vital Signs Reader
Problem statement
Traditional vital signs monitoring required physical medical equipment, limiting remote healthcare capabilities. Healthcare providers needed accurate, non-contact methods to assess patient vital signs during video consultations, especially crucial during the pandemic when physical contact was minimized.
Research & discovery
Clinical requirements:
Heart rate monitoring accuracy within ±3 BPM
Respiratory rate detection within ±2 breaths per minute
Blood oxygen saturation estimation capabilities
Real-time processing during video consultations
Technology constraints:
Browser-based solution requiring no additional hardware
Variable lighting conditions and camera quality
Patient movement and positioning variations
Privacy concerns with biometric data collection
Solution architecture
We needed a core technology stack combining multiple advanced components to ensure reliable, real-time health insights. At its foundation, a computer vision engine leverages AI-powered facial recognition to detect pulse and other vital signals without physical sensors. This is complemented by sophisticated signal processing algorithms that filter out noise and motion artifacts, ensuring clean, accurate data capture even in dynamic environments. Real-time analytics then translate these signals into live monitoring of vital signs during consultations, giving healthcare providers immediate and actionable insights. To guarantee clinical reliability, all outputs are subjected to rigorous data validation protocols designed to meet medical-grade accuracy standards.
Key features:
Non-contact vital signs measurement
Real-time heart rate and respiratory rate detection
Integration with video consultation platform
Automated data logging and trend analysis
Key design decisions
The interface was designed to prioritize usability and trust, minimizing cognitive load by enabling automatic operation with minimal user interaction. Clear visual feedback guides users to achieve optimal positioning and ensures high-quality measurements. The design maintains medical credibility through a professional, clinically aligned aesthetic, while robust error handling provides alternative measurement methods when needed, ensuring seamless operation even in challenging scenarios.
The system provides intuitive positioning guidance through an augmented reality overlay that indicates optimal face placement, accompanied by real-time feedback on lighting and distance. On the data side, a real-time vital signs dashboard is integrated directly into the consultation interface, with simplified data export to ensure seamless integration with medical records.
Outcome
The vital signs monitoring system successfully transformed remote healthcare consultations by providing accurate, non-contact measurement of heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood oxygen saturation through standard device cameras. Users benefited from an intuitive interface with augmented reality positioning guidance, real-time feedback, and automated operation, reducing cognitive load and enhancing trust. Healthcare providers gained immediate access to live vital signs dashboards, longitudinal trend analysis, and simplified data export for seamless medical record integration. By combining clinical-grade accuracy with a user-friendly experience, the solution enabled safe, efficient, and reliable remote patient monitoring, expanding the capabilities of telemedicine and minimizing the need for physical contact.
Enhanced diagnostic capabilities for remote consultations
Objective health data supporting clinical decision-making
Longitudinal health monitoring capabilities
Reflections
Working on this project highlighted the impact of thoughtful UI/UX design in enabling enhanced diagnostic capabilities for remote consultations. By presenting objective health data in a clear and intuitive way, the system supported clinicians in making informed decisions while also providing longitudinal monitoring to track patient health over time. This experience reinforced the importance of designing interfaces that balance clinical accuracy with user trust and accessibility, ultimately empowering both patients and healthcare providers.
Project 3: Nurses Triage Platform
Problem statement
Healthcare systems faced critical nursing shortages while patient volumes increased dramatically. Nurses needed intelligent tools to efficiently triage patients, prioritize care, and manage complex clinical workflows without compromising patient safety or care quality.
Research & discovery
Analysis of nursing workflows revealed that:
a significant portion of nursing time was consumed by documentation and administrative tasks, leaving limited capacity for direct patient care;
manual triage processes caused delays in critical care and led to inconsistent decisions across staff;
nurses faced challenges accessing comprehensive patient data and tracking status changes throughout shifts;
Integration with existing Electronic Health Records (EHR) was identified as essential for a complete solution.
Solution architecture
The platform enables nurses to manage patient interactions through a structured five-step workflow, capturing patient details, call reasons, and clinical assessments. Based on the evaluation, the system supports referrals to video or phone consultations or escalation to urgent care. For video appointments, nurses can view available doctors and their schedules, facilitating direct booking for the patient.
Key features:
Structured five-step patient registration and assessment workflow
Clinical assessment with expandable details and free-text input
Referral options to video, phone, or urgent care consultations
Integrated doctor availability and scheduling system
Key design decisions
The platform’s interface was designed to optimize usability and workflow efficiency. A multi-step layout reduces cognitive load, guiding nurses through complex tasks step by step. Consistent brand identity and color palette reinforce trust and familiarity, while real-time visual cues and intuitive navigation ensure smooth interaction during high-pressure situations.
Multi-step interface to simplify complex workflows
Consistent branding and color palette for trust and recognition
Real-time visual feedback to support accurate actions
Intuitive navigation for efficient decision-making in clinical contexts
Outcome
The platform improves triage efficiency, patient prioritization, and clinical decision consistency. Nurses benefit from reduced administrative burden, faster patient handoffs, and increased direct patient care time. Healthcare systems experience improved patient satisfaction, shorter hospital stays, and cost savings, while achieving high staff adoption rates. The platform provides reliable, real-time support that empowered nurses to deliver safer and more efficient care.
Reflections
This project reinforced the importance of designing tools that enhance, rather than replace, clinical expertise. By combining advanced clinical decision support with user-centered interface design, the platform enabled nurses to make faster, more accurate decisions while maintaining trust and usability. The experience highlighted the critical balance between technology, workflow integration, and human factors in high-stakes healthcare environments.