Too Many Clicks: Designing Care Around Real People

By Tammy Elliott, RN

During a recent review, our team started counting the number of steps it can take to find important information online. In one case, it took twelve clicks to reach details a parent might need for early childhood screening.

Twelve clicks might not sound like much to someone who works on computers all day. But we thought about a mother holding a child on one arm and a phone in the other. We thought about a grandparent with limited internet experience or a family whose first language is not English. For them, twelve clicks can feel like a locked door.

Access is not only about having a benefit. It is about being able to find and use it.

Compliance Is Not the Same as Usability

In many cases, information meets regulatory requirements. It exists and checks the necessary boxes. Yet compliance alone does not guarantee that users can easily reach what they need.

External Quality Review allows us to look beyond checkboxes and focus on real user experience. Meeting the rule is important, and there is often an opportunity to make the experience even better for members. Recommendations like simplifying navigation or using clearer language may seem small, but they can change real experiences.

Health Literacy Is Part of Health Equity

Not everyone approaches the health system with the same tools. Some have limited reading skills. Others are unfamiliar with medical terms or online portals. Many are balancing work, transportation and childcare while trying to solve a problem quickly.

When systems are designed only for people who already understand health care, they leave others behind. As a nurse I have seen how confusing instructions can turn into missed appointments or delayed treatment. Those gaps become equity issues.

Designing with the most vulnerable user in mind makes the system better for everyone.

Technology Should Reduce Friction

My role at KFMC includes supporting the technical side of projects, but I am not a technologist at heart. I am a nurse who believes tools should make care easier, not harder.

When we review processes, I try to imagine the person on the other end. If this were my patient, would they be able to do this at the end of a long day? If the answer is no, we need to rethink the design.

Small Changes, Real Impact

Simplifying a website will not solve every challenge in health care, but it can remove one obstacle from a family already carrying many. That is how improvement often happens, one practical change at a time.

Equity is not only a policy goal. It is also a design decision. Twelve clicks is too many when someone is trying to care for a child.

Our job is to notice those moments and help systems do better.