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My Role

All encompassing, VC-backed early stage start-up role, including
Product Strategy & Management - Customer & User Research (Ethnography, User Testing, Workshopping) - Prototyping (Paper, Sketch, Code) - Product / Service / UX / UI Design (iPadOS, VR, Web) - Product & Software Architecture - iPadOS App Development - Unity VR App Development - Website & Cloud Backend Development

Context

Co-founded HealthTech startup with a clinical neuroscientist who had developed a conceptual outline of the product, based off 20 years of academic research that validated VR as a more effective & safer delivery mechanism for exposure therapy for PTSD, particularly in cohorts with the lowest patient outcome success rates such as military veterans & first responders.

Once we had aligned on a shared company vision, my approach was first to collect & re-synthesise all prior product research & design decisions to assess solution confidence & gaps. Our first immediate challenge was fundraising seed capital for the business, so I created & executed a research plan to de-risk our go-to-market strategy, including filling knowledge gaps in clinical behaviours & attitudes around the relationship to technology in a clinical setting, and the mechanics of treatment solution procurement in the sector.

After we had amassed sufficient confidence in our GTM strategy & secured seed funding, I adopted a lean product design process of iterative prototyping & 1:1 testing with representative users in the complex mental health care ecosystem, starting with paper sketches & evolving into digital mockups, interactive prototypes & eventually functional software as product design confidence grew with new learnings. We then rolled out this end-to-end functional prototype to the top 5 leading PTSD treatment centres in Australia to tease out remaining obstacles to clinical adoption & patient treatment success.

Product

Turnkey solution that bundled apps & devices into a portable kit for clinical use, including

Psychologist-facing iPadOS app
Tablet app empowering psychologists to create, configure & monitor 3D virtual environments during a therapy session that the patient experiences in VR, in realtime.
These therapeutic 3D environments, such as a high-sensory busy supermarket or a recreation of a traumatic memory, aide the patient with safely processing their responses to simulated high stress stimuli under clinical supervision

Patient-facing VR app
Virtual reality app where the patient experiences the therapeutic 3D environments that the psychologist is creating, configuring & monitoring via the tablet app during a therapy session

Clinic-administrator facing admin portal
Web portal providing psychologists, clinic or account adminstrators with account admin controls & access to patent impact reporting

Company website
VC & mental healthcare ecosystem-facing site

Challenges

Determining whether the predominantly analog, complex-mental-health-care ecosystem was ready to adopt an innovative, tech-heavy treatment solution - at both the institutional & treating clinician level.

Designing a solution that seamlessly fits into clinical workflows, for a low-tech mature ecosystem

Designing for both practitioner & patients in the cognitively & emotionally intense context of complex mental health therapy.

Determining how to capture & present patient progress for maximum impact.

Key Learnings

Pandemic move to teletherapy-based therapy was the most significant inflection point to ever occur in the adoption of technology in mental health.

Due to the nature of clinical practice, individual psychologists have zero bandwidth to source or assess new treatment solutions.

The diversity of psychologist workflows, from clinical hours to philosphy of treatment practice.

PTSD symptom management is a higher priority to care providers in the near term, versus a long term trauma 'cure'.

The mental model of exposure therapy process & goals.

A suite of additional use-cases & companion functionality to the core anxiety & trauma treatment solution.

Goals Met

Clinical pilot of MVP currently running in Australia’s leading PTSD treatment centres, including conservative government-run counselling agencies.