Creating a great patient experience in healthcare is never about features alone. It’s about how those features come together to create an experience that makes someone feel calm, supported, and not alone in the moments that matter most. That lens shaped everything I built when I joined Kannact in 2021 as their first product manager.

Most of the people we worked with were living with diabetes, hypertension, obesity, or asthma. Many were from rural communities with unreliable tech. Most were in their fifties to seventies and often very tech averse. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) was supposed to make life easier, but in practice, it often introduced more friction than support.

How it started

When I joined, one of the first things I noticed was how often our health coaches were running into basic phone and tech issues. Calls dropped constantly. Patients thought we hung up. And because our entire service ran on phone calls, this wasn’t just inconvenient… it was breaking trust.

Each coach was managing close to four hundred people, often relying on sticky notes to track tasks. Without a way to create reminders or a centralized scheduling system, appointments slipped through the cracks. There were no confirmations, no reminders, and no clear way to see who needed follow up and why. Patients wanted to participate. The system made it harder than it needed to be.

And the mobile app added a different kind of friction. Nearly everything required Bluetooth pairing, and pairing issues were driving most of our low satisfaction scores. The support team was flooded with calls from people who couldn’t get the app to connect or couldn’t get their readings to come through. For a 62 year old trying to check their blood pressure before work, managing flashing lights and pairing issues was not feasible.

It became clear the experience wasn’t broken in one place. It needed to be redesigned around how patients and coaches actually live and work. From there, I rebuilt the system step by step, always starting with the same question: what would make this simpler, calmer, and easier for someone managing a busy life with a chronic condition?

A communication system that patients could trust

The first thing I fixed was the calling experience. Our entire program depended on it. I designed and launched a new phone system on Twilio that:

• Reduced dropped calls and improved audio quality.
• Gave coaches a reliable way to reach patients without fear of the line disappearing.
• Created the foundation for an omnichannel communication hub where coaches can call, text, and message from one place.

Outreach shifted from scattered and reactive to consistent and human.

Read more about the coach experience →

Automated outreach that still feels like a person

Patients did not need marketing-style automation. They needed warmth, gentle reminders, and the sense that someone was paying attention.

I led the design of an automated messaging system that:

• Reaches patients through channels they already use, like text and email.
• Notifies them when they miss a coaching session, aren’t taking enough readings, or haven’t engaged in a while.
• Sends messages that are handwritten by each coach and sent through their real phone and email so the message feels human and authentic.
• Alerts the coach when someone replies, so they can continue the conversation naturally.

This approach increased patient touch points by 50% and nearly doubled activation and long-term engagement, all without adding manual work for care teams. The system scaled while the experience stayed personal.

Scheduling that eliminates anxiety

Before we had a centralized scheduling system, patients often missed visits simply because they did not remember or have an easy way to reschedule.

I designed and implemented a streamlined way to manage appointments with:

• Real-time coach availability.
• Automatic reminders before each visit.
• A simple way to manage, cancel, or reschedule through text or the app.

The impact was immediate.

Appointment no-shows dropped by 50%, and coach efficiency increased by >300%. Coaches stopped spending half their day chasing people who never meant to miss their visit in the first place.

A real-time alert system for out of range readings

Safety sits at the forefront of our program. Chronic conditions can shift quickly, and patients often face those moments alone.

We needed a way to respond in seconds and guide people through what to do next. I led the design of a simple, structured alert model:

• When a reading crosses a critical threshold, the patient receives an immediate text that explains:
  • What the reading means.
  • What symptoms to watch for.
  • What to do next, often starting with a simple re-check after a few minutes.
• At the same time, our nurse practitioners receive real-time alerts and:
  • Call the patient directly.
  • Screen for symptoms.
  • Talk through the situation and escalate to the primary care provider if needed.
• After hours, patients can reach our 24/7 nurse line for support and reassurance.

In coaching sessions, those critical readings are clearly highlighted so health coaches can:

• Talk through small, realistic adjustments that can prevent future events.
• Go deeper into the behaviors and patterns behind the spikes.
• Connect the data to real habits, routines, and daily life.

A mobile app rebuilt for older adults

The original app was brittle and overwhelming for many of the people we served.

I led a full redesign focused on what older adults actually need:

• A calm design system that reduces visual noise.
• Simple, predictable navigation.
• Streamlined Bluetooth pairing that reduces friction and confusion.
• Clear visual trends for readings and progress.
• Secure messaging with their health coach.
• Easy appointment viewing and management.

App satisfaction increased by nearly 25%. For many patients, the new app was the difference between staying engaged and giving up.

A simple patient portal for those who prefer computers

Some people prefer a computer and a larger screen. We designed a clean desktop portal that offers:

• Readings and trends in a simple, readable format.
• Secure messages with the care team.
• Appointment details in one predictable place.

The focus was on clarity and ease, not features for their own sake.

An app-free experience for those who wanted it

Not everyone has a smartphone or Wi-Fi, and many are tech averse. Sometimes screens can feel more stressful than helpful, so we designed an app-less experience that removes that barrier:

• There was no pairing, no passwords, and no setup to manage.
• We moved to cellular enabled devices with built in 4G, so patients no longer needed Wi-Fi, a smartphone, or a tablet. They simply took a reading and the device uploaded it automatically.
• Instead of tracking readings in an app, they could generate a weekly summary and forward it to their doctor.
• Most engagement happens through phone calls, including scheduled sessions and ad-hoc check ins when a reading looks unusual. If something is concerning, the care team reaches out right away, and all the patient has to do is answer the phone.
• Between calls, coaches can always be reached by text message and end-to-end encrypted email for anyone who prefers it.

Something that once felt overwhelming is now simple and accessible. They take a reading, and we handle the rest.

A health progress report for their primary care team

As patients made progress, we needed a simple way to close the loop with their providers. At the time, there was no real path for getting this information back to their care team, so we built one.

We created the Health Summary Report entirely from scratch. It brings together:

• Clinical/coaching progress notes
• HEDIS measures
• Lifestyle habits and goals
• RPM device readings
• Biometric trends

It gave clinicians a view they’d never had before… and it became a product led growth engine because it earned trust through their own patients’ outcomes.

Whitelabeled for scale

As we expanded into new markets and launched Starlight, everything had to adapt without effort. We whitelabeled:

• The mobile app
• The patient portal
• Automated campaigns
• Surveys
• Scheduling pages
• Internal dashboards

Patients saw the brand they trusted. The system handled the rest. This flexibility allowed us to scale across new partnerships while maintaining net churn below 2%.

The Impact

The experience changed. And so did the numbers.

• Participant satisfaction reached 96%
• Post-session feedback averaged 4.9 out of 5 stars
• Net churn remained below <2%
• Net Promoter Score jumped 12 points (from 70 to 82); what most benchmarks would consider world-class territory.

People participated. They felt supported. Coaches had room to do their best work. And the entire system became something we could scale confidently across new partnerships and markets.

This work later became the foundation of the experience we built at Starlight… a model rooted in clarity, trust, and human connection that could support real clinical outcomes at scale.