Shayam Parasram

What I've Done

What I've Done

What I've Done

Building the Immunizations Checklist at Cureatr

The Challenge

At Cureatr, we support vulnerable patients during critical transitions of care—usually right after a hospital discharge. Our telepharmacists conduct medication reviews with patients on behalf of Medicare Advantage plans and risk-bearing health orgs.

One recurring problem: immunization data collection was a mess.

Clinical teams entered vaccine histories in free-text fields, leading to inconsistent inputs like “covid,” “COVID-19,” “coronavirus,” or worse—typos that made the data unusable downstream.

Prompt

Understand the immunization intake workflow and design a streamlined, standardized interface that saves clinicians time—without compromising detail.

Understanding Our User Base

Internal Telepharmacists

  • Collected clinical data live during calls with patients.

  • Juggled speed, accuracy, and empathy under pressure.

  • Repeated common responses and turned to copy/paste hacks from Notes apps just to get through the workflow.

Medicare Advantage Patients

  • Typically just discharged, overwhelmed, and managing 10+ medications and multiple conditions.

  • Often unsure about their vaccine history, or couldn’t find paperwork.

  • Needed empathy and structure—not open-ended interrogation.

We kicked things off with 6 deep-dive interviews with our core user: the Business Office Manager (BOM), often the administrative heart of these communities. Alongside them stood the payors; sometimes Independent Residents, but more often their adult children or designated caregivers.

Digging into the Research

I conducted 5 in-depth interviews and 10 shadowing sessions with our clinical team to map how immunizations were handled in real time. Key insights:

  • Standard vaccines are recurring: Most patients had the same top 5 immunizations.

  • Free-text entry = friction + mess: Typos and variations created downstream cleanup for the data team.

  • Context matters: Clinicians wanted to mark if a patient was "up to date" and optionally enter a next dose date or additional notes.

We kicked things off with 6 deep-dive interviews with our core user: the Business Office Manager (BOM), often the administrative heart of these communities. Alongside them stood the payors; sometimes Independent Residents, but more often their adult children or designated caregivers.

Designing for Speed and Structure

With these insights, I designed a structured immunization entry tool that brought order to chaos—without constraining clinical flexibility.

Core Features

  • Pre-built checkboxes for top 5 common immunizations (based on research).

  • Date selectors to mark when a dose was given or next due.

  • A smart notes field for nuance and clinical discretion.

  • The ability to quickly add new immunizations not in the standard list.

Clinicians could now complete this step with just a few clicks—no more copy/paste hacks, no more messy data.

My Boldest Contribution

I advocated for a structured, checkbox-first design that reduced typing while honoring the clinicians’ desire for control.

This wasn’t a simple UI tweak—it was a shift in mindset. Free-text fields had always been the default “just in case,” but through evidence and empathy, I earned stakeholder buy-in to change that. And it worked.

The Outcome

  • Cleaner data: Standardized inputs enabled easier reporting, compliance checks, and follow-ups.

  • Faster workflow: Reduced friction in live patient calls, giving clinicians more time to focus on care, and reducing note taking time by >3 minutes per call.

  • More human interactions: With less focus on typing and form-wrangling, clinicians could better engage with patients.

What started as a scattered field in the EMR became a structured, usable, and human-centered feature that empowered our teams and brought clarity to a confusing moment in patient care.

Framer 2023

Amsterdam