Reimagining memory recall
to simplify learning for 1.8M+ patients.
4 mos / University Collaboration
In hospitals, patients are often asked to repeat back what their doctor told them — an empathetic method called Teach-Back that ensures understanding. But once they return home, that safety net disappears.
I joined this project to imagine digital teach back for the first time ever, recreating human warmth, encourage memory retention, and support patients long after they’d left the clinic — in the comfort of home.
Background
Untapped Potential
In 2024, Healthwise (now WebMD Ignite) was ranked #1 in Patient Education by KLAS, with 95% of clients saying that they would choose Healthwise again — highlighting its reputation for quality, usability and effectiveness.
With high completion and trust metrics, Healthwise had strong content, but no interface for patients to actively process understanding digitally. Healthwise had yet to empower patients’ own articulation of understanding — a core component of behavior change.
The Digital Teach‑Back project aimed to fill that gap, enabling patients to actively engage and reinforce their learning from home, delivering benefits at scale.
The Challenge
Boost patient understanding beyond the clinic.
Patients forget 40–80% of medical information after a clinical visit, and even more when recovering at home. Healthwise wanted to extend a proven hospital method called Teach-Back to digital environments — but without sacrificing its personal, trust-based nature.
Our goals were to —
Help patients recall critical health information at home.
Build an experience that mirrors the empathy of clinician interaction.
Ensure patients could self-evaluate their understanding effectively.
My Role
Lead User Researcher, UX Designer
I was the Lead User Researcher on this 4-month project from January to April 2024. I collaborated with a team of 10, including UX Designers, Product Managers, Content Writers and Strategists.
I was responsible for —
Defining the Digital Teach-Back framework from scratch.
Conducting literature reviews and interviews with clinicians.
Synthesizing insights into journey maps and interactive prototypes.
Leading design critique sessions and presenting it to stakeholders.
One April 30th 2024, the Digital Teach Back Prototype was handed over the Healthwise team after stakeholder approval for development.
Outcome
Imagining Digital Teach-Back for Colonoscopy.
How might a patient learn about Colonoscopy at home before arrival in Hospital?
Personalized Lesson Plans
Reinforces memory recall by repetition
Empowers patients by summarizing content.
Kickoff
Starting with bits and pieces of ideas.
At the onset of the project, there was no clear direction on how to make Digital Teach-Back. With no digital analogs, frameworks, or data on how patients might engage with it at home, I partnered with our researcher to investigate how patients were currently processing medical information post-visit — and where that understanding was breaking down.
What is teach-back?
Teach-back is a technique where patients explain in their own words what their doctors told them to ensure they understood it correctly.
… and there is a sequence to it.
Teach
Repeat
Evaluate
Explain
Reinforce
Methods
Drawing insights from the learning journey.
Research show that most patients want to follow their care instructions — they just struggle to absorb, remember, and act on them.
Through literature reviews, digital ethnography, interviews, and consolidating it in journey maps — we uncovered five recurring breakdowns in the Teach-Back experience. From information overload to unclear steps and intimidating interfaces, these pain points revealed not just what was broken, but where design could help.
10+ Interviews
Nurses
Product Managers + UX Researchers
Patients
Interviews helped me learn that —
Express knowledge concisely limited to 2-4 points.
Communicate to educate, without 'testing' knowledge.
Journey Mapping
Pain Points
Opportunity
Overload of information at several points in the process.
Chunking information to make information easier to follow.
Loss of information in/through the conversation.
Add interactive checkpoints that let users reflect instructions through active recall.
Forgetting to check messages in time from the patient’s portal.
Introduce gentle nudges based on urgency or care plan to prompt timely learning.
Mixing or confusing the steps while following the given information.
Use visual step indicators and progress scaffolding to clearly sequence tasks, reducing error.
Intimidating processes make users not want to engage in Teach-Back.
Design a friendly, low-pressure environment with positive language and feedback to build confidence.
Journey Maps helped me learn that —
Chunk information to make information easier to follow.
Different learning activities to improve recall.
Rapid Ideation Highlights
Conversational AI
Virtual Buddy
Rapid Ideation helped me learn that —
There's a lack of depth in these concepts: We needed to start with one diagnosis to entirely explore what a patient goes through from the symptoms to recovery. These ideas were met with negative criticism surrounding the use of AI in healthcare scenarios, especially with the trust and AI’s potential to misunderstand conversations which might affect the outcome of teach-back.
Framework based on Universal Design of Learning
To make the content replicable for more health conditions, I made a
Digital Teach-Back Framework.
Learning Objective
Engagement (Why)
Representation (What)
Action & Expression (How)
Instruction
Understanding Conditions & Diagnoses
Activity
Types of multimedia recommended for Interactive Activities
What you need to know
Before your surgery
Before your procedure
Articles
Videos
Articles
Videos
Fill in the Blanks
Articlest
Videos
Drag & Drop
Sequence Arrangement
The framework puts content in order of the teach-back method.
Teach
Repeat
Evaluate
Explain
Reinforce
Learning Objective
Instructions
Learning Activities
Usability Tests
7+ Usability Tests — Mixed results, mixed feelings.
In-Person Teach-Back
Digital Teach-Back
Repeat information to improve understanding.
To ‘repeat’ becomes intimidating when not done in person.
Don't make it feel like you are testing them.
Quizzes are easier to interact with as compared to repeating information.
Although, the framework did the trick, we learnt that this experience cannot be human free. Digital Teach-Back needs human overview to ensure medical information is conveyed accurately.
Outcome
In the end, Digital Teach-Back needs to function with human oversight.
Teach-Back
Teach
Repeat
Evaluate
Explain
Reinforce
Digital Teach-Back
Teach
Repeat
Evaluate
Explain
Reinforce
Verify
1
Teach
Use chunking to teach patients about their condition.
2
Repeat
Ask patients to repeat what was said to confirm their understanding.
3
Evaluate
Correct any missing information based on what was said with an explanation.
4
Explain
Ask patients to repeat what was said and confirm their understanding.
5
Reinforce
After explaining, reinforce the information to enhance understanding.
6
Verify
Report the learning outcomes to the doctor to check understanding and repeat if needed.
Documentation
I've documented every teeny, tiny detail of the project —
Last Update: 06.13.25
Made with iteration & feedback
© Sanskriti Bhatnagar 2025