MyPainPal
Pain care designed for the days between visits
- Role
- Product Designer
- Company
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Team
- Oncologists, palliative-care researchers, nurses & engineers
- Timeline
- 4 months
My role focused on
At a glance
The problem
Patients with advanced cancer manage complex opioid regimens at home, between visits, where pain changes fast and the care team is blind. Most never report what's happening until it becomes an emergency or the next appointment.
The insight
The problem was two-sided. Patients needed to report pain without it becoming another burden, and clinicians needed that data to become action, not noise. So I designed a gentle, accessible daily check-in on one side, and a triage-first dashboard that surfaced only what needed a nurse on the other.
The impact
In a Dana-Farber pilot it earned a 78.3 SUS from an older, seriously ill population, lifted symptom-logging consistency by 40%, and cut clinician response time by 18% through dashboard triage.
Patient Mobile App
Daily symptom tracking and pain management
Clinician Web Platform
Real-time monitoring and care coordination
Symptom-logging consistency
Patients reported more, and more often
Clinician response time
Faster triage via the dashboard
SUS usability score
Benchmark is 68 (pilot study)
01, Context
Care that happens where no one is watching
MyPainPal is a dual-platform digital health system built with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to support patients with advanced cancer in palliative care. Its purpose: improve pain visibility, streamline symptom reporting, and strengthen communication between patients and their care teams.
Pain affects two in three patients with advanced disease, and most of it is managed at home, between visits, on complex opioid regimens the patient has to navigate largely alone.
Why it matters
66%
of advanced-cancer patients live with pain
One of the most common and most feared symptoms
At home
is where the hardest management happens
Days or weeks between clinic visits
Opioids
carry both relief and real risk
Side effects, constipation, stigma, dosing errors
Zero
real-time visibility for the care team
Clinicians saw a snapshot at each visit, nothing in between
02, The clinical challenge
The hardest days happen off the clinic's radar
Between visits, the same gap hurt both sides of the room.
Patients experience
- Rapidly fluctuating pain levels
- Complex, changing medication regimens
- Cognitive fatigue and low energy
- Emotional vulnerability
Clinicians face
- Limited real-time symptom insight
- Delayed reporting between appointments
- High patient volume
- Narrow windows to respond
The design challenge
Reduce reporting friction
Increase symptom visibility
Preserve dignity and emotional safety
03, Research
Empathy was the requirement, not the nice-to-have
I led research into a fragile audience: older, seriously ill, often tired or in pain. With a panel of oncologists, nurses and researchers validating every step, the same needs surfaced again and again.
I don't want to bother them
Patients under-reported pain, not wanting to burden a busy care team.
Am I taking too much?
Opioid stigma and fear of dosing wrong created silent anxiety, and mistakes.
Another app telling me what to do
This audience had no appetite for pressure, streaks, or homework.
I just want it to be simple
Older patients, low energy, sometimes impaired: clarity and accessibility were non-negotiable.
04, Who we designed for
Two users, one system
The system had to serve two very different people at once: the patient at home and the clinician watching over a whole cohort. Neither could be an afterthought.
The patient at home
Advanced cancer, managing pain and a complex opioid regimen between clinic visits.
What they need
- To report pain without it feeling like a chore
- Plain language, low visual load, large targets
- Never to feel pressured or judged for opioid use
- A fast way to reach someone when pain spikes
The care team
Palliative-care nurses and physicians watching over a whole cohort between visits.
What they need
- To see who needs attention first, not every data point
- Trustworthy signals, not false alarms
- Patient status at a glance on a busy clinic day
- To act and document without leaving their workflow
05, Design principles
Rules for designing around people in pain
From the research I distilled the non-negotiables. Every screen was measured against them, and when a principle and a feature collided, the principle won.
Empathy over engagement
Never optimize for streaks or pressure. A seriously ill patient should feel supported, never nagged.
Accessibility as the baseline
Large targets, high contrast, plain language, low visual load. Designed for a hard day, not an ideal one.
Clarity over completeness
Show the essential first. Reduce visual noise so a tired patient can act in seconds.
Participation, never obligation
Every action optional and guilt-free. Reporting made easy, never demanded.
Signal over data
For clinicians, surface what needs action, not everything that was logged.
06, What we refused to build
The anti-patterns, and the tone we kept instead
In a space this sensitive, the wrong pattern does real harm. Naming what we would not build was as important as the features, and it kept the voice compassionate, clear and dignified throughout.
We avoided
Design tone
Compassionate, clear, dignified
Healthcare = empathy + clarity
07, Key decisions
Principles turned into interface
The through-line: make participation effortless and optional, and make the data actionable. Almost every decision chose the gentler, clearer path over the more feature-rich one.
A daily check-in, not a task list
One gentle prompt a day, skippable without penalty. No streaks, no red badges, no guilt for missing it.
Empathic, adaptive microcopy
Each response was tailored and warm, a brief human line before any education, so reporting felt met, not measured.
A medicine cabinet in their own words
Each patient's real medications, named the way they know them, so logging didn't require translation.
Good / fair / poor, not a number to decode
The app interpreted pain control into plain status and a next step, instead of leaving a tired patient to judge raw scores.
One tap to reach a human when it spikes
When a check-in crossed a safety threshold, a one-tap call and a quiet alert to the nurse: help without a hurdle.
A triage-first clinician dashboard
The desktop tool sorted each cohort by who needed attention, so a nurse saw the two patients that mattered before the eighteen who were fine.
08, The app
Support in their pocket, on their terms
One calm place, reachable however they wanted, in language that stayed plain, warm and never clinical.
Tuesday, Aug 12
Good morning, Jane
How are you feeling today?
A quick check-in helps your care team stay with you.
Next dose · 2:00 PM
Oxycodone 5 mg
Talk to your care team
One tap, any time pain spikes
From your library
5-minute breathing for pain
Meditation · 5 min
A calm home: today's check-in, the next dose, and one tap to a person, never a wall of numbers.
Resource library
Reading, meditation and video, browsable freely and reached independently, never handed out as homework.
Medication reminders
Gentle reminders for their own regimen, so the next dose was one less thing to hold in mind.
Daily check-in surveys
A short, skippable survey to report how the day felt: pain, mood and symptoms, in their own words.
Access on their own terms
Every tool reachable directly, in any order, so the app met the patient where they were that day.
09, The desktop
One place to run the study
A separate product for a separate user: one console to review, assign, and respond, with urgent alerts pulled to the top.
Dianne Russell
Clinical lead
Clinical Dashboard
Manage and monitor all patient records
1,000
▲12% Since last month
500
Stable Awaiting clinical review
500
▼5% Since last month
| Status | Full name | MRN # | Provider 1 | Provider 2 | Last survey | Pain compliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
JC Cooper, Jane 67 y.o. / Female | 1234123 | Andrea Erzinger, MD | Andrea Erzinger, MD | — | Poor | |
WW Warren, Wade 88 y.o. / Male | 1234124 | Courtney Henry, MD | Courtney Henry, MD | 02/08/2023 | Very Frequent | |
EH Howard, Esther 42 y.o. / Female | 1234125 | Brooklyn Simmons, MD | Brooklyn Simmons, MD | — | — | |
CW William, Cameron 56 y.o. / Male | 1234126 | Theresa Webb, MD | Theresa Webb, MD | 02/08/2023 | Good | |
BC Cooper, Bessie 78 y.o. / Female | 1234127 | Dianne Russell, MD | Dianne Russell, MD | 02/08/2023 | Fair | |
CW Cooper, Wes 61 y.o. / Male | 1234128 | Dianne Russell, MD | Dianne Russell, MD | 02/08/2023 | Fair |
Patient overview
Physical and emotional status plus full medical history, consolidated in one view.
Resource assignment
Assign reading, meditation and video to a patient or a whole cohort.
Medication assignment
Set and adjust each patient's regimen, reflected back in their app.
Real-time alerts
Flags raised by what patients reported in the app, surfaced for immediate attention.
Survey builder
Create and tailor the surveys patients answer, adapted to the study's needs.
Cohort management
Organize patients into study groups and track them side by side.
10, Results
It worked for the people hardest to design for
Validated in a pilot with patients in advanced cancer, MyPainPal proved both usable and trusted by a group many assume won't adopt technology, a 78.3 SUS. Beyond usability, it moved the numbers that matter: patients reported more consistently, problems surfaced sooner, and clinicians responded faster. It turned patient-reported pain into timely clinical action.
Symptom-logging consistency
Patients reported more, and more often
Pain-escalation reporting delay
Problems surfaced closer to when they happened
Medication-adherence tracking
Regimens tracked and corrected between visits
Clinician response time
Triage-first dashboard shortened the loop
Patient-provider communication
From qualitative feedback with the care team
SUS usability score
From an older, seriously ill population
Reflection
What I took from it
Designing for people in pain reset my definition of good UX. Every extra tap, every ambiguous label, every hint of pressure costs more here than in any product I'd worked on. Restraint and clarity weren't style choices, they were care.
The two-sided nature taught me the most: a patient's effortless check-in is only worth something if it becomes a clinician's timely action. Designing the handoff between those two surfaces, not just the two screens, was the real work.
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