REPCARDz
Medical device ordering at the fingertips of healthcare providers.
The Challenge
In healthcare, access to the right medical device at the right moment can be the difference between life and death. Yet the process of finding and procuring devices—especially in emergency situations—relies on an absurdly fragile system: business cards and personal relationships with sales representatives.
When a surgeon needs a specific device mid-procedure, there's often no systematic way to locate the appropriate sales rep. My client approached me to design a platform that would modernize this critical but overlooked healthcare workflow.
My Role
Product Designer · Led user research, product strategy, and end-to-end design for a mobile-first platform connecting healthcare providers with medical device sales professionals.
Design Process
Framing the Challenge
I began with a fundamental question:
How might we enable healthcare providers to find and procure the right medical products with ease and on-demand?
To answer this, I conducted extensive research including interviews with physicians, sales representatives, hospital administrators, and healthcare industry analysts. I also shadowed a surgeon through a day of procedures to understand the real-world context.
Understanding the Users
The research revealed critical dynamics in the medical device ecosystem:
Physicians, particularly surgeons, have significant influence over which devices are procured for their procedures. They often have strong preferences based on training and experience.
Sales representatives move frequently between companies and divisions, making yesterday's business card potentially useless today.
Time pressure is extreme—especially in surgical contexts where a device need might be identified mid-procedure.
Designing for Mobile-First
Given that providers are constantly moving and rarely have extended desk time, I designed the platform with mobile as the primary experience, responsive to desktop but optimized for one-handed phone use.
The core workflow was designed around speed:
- Search for a device or representative
- View availability and contact options
- Initiate contact with one tap
Leveraging FDA Data
A key innovation came from timing: the FDA was about to release a beta API for their medical device database. I designed the platform's product taxonomy to align with the FDA's classification system, enabling powerful search and filtering capabilities while ensuring regulatory accuracy.
Providers could browse by device category, manufacturer, or specific product—with results linked to verified sales representatives in their region.
Dual User Experiences
The platform served two distinct user types with different needs:
Providers needed fast access to devices and representatives, with minimal friction in urgent situations.
Sales representatives needed to maintain accurate profiles, manage their territory coverage, and respond quickly to provider inquiries.
I designed tailored experiences for each while maintaining a unified design system.
Outcome
REPCARDz demonstrated how thoughtful design could modernize a healthcare workflow that had remained unchanged for decades. By reducing the friction between device need and procurement, the platform had potential to improve surgical outcomes while creating efficiency for all parties involved.