YUNG-SHENG CHANG, Ph.D.

​
Situation
 
At Legacy Health, scheduling a primary care appointment was mostly done by phone, creating pain points for both patients and front-desk staff. Patients faced long wait times and limited online options, while staff were overwhelmed with high call volumes, contributing to an 11.5% call abandonment rate. Survey data showed patients were equally split between preferring phone and online scheduling—yet few visit types could be self-scheduled online. The goal of this project was to expand scheduling options via the electronic health record, EPIC (SaaS) to reduce phone system strain and meet patients’ needs.​​​

Task

​

I led this research-driven project, and my responsibilities were to manage stakeholder relationships, lead the design process, evaluate the navigation and content design, and coordinate the project handoff to the operational teams who later launched the new scheduling workflow.

​

The project success was measured by improvements in online scheduling rates, reduced phone call volume, and lower call abandonment rates.

​

​

Actions

​

• Collaborated with clinic managers to identify high-volume visit types (e.g., behavioral health, annual exams) to include in online scheduling

• Partnered with designers and content experts to redesign the scheduling workflow and content 

• Conducted a usability study and tree test to uncover navigation and content issues

• Recommended improvements such as removing dropdown menus, simplifying instructions, and relabeling confusing buttons and menu items

 ​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​