Transforming Patient Access with EHR Integration and a Digital-First Care Strategy

The Challenge

Rush University System for Health, a leading academic health system in Chicago, aimed to transform how patients access care in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Although Rush had a strong clinical reputation, its existing digital tools presented opportunities for improvement, particularly in how patients scheduled appointments. Digital-first entrants were introducing more streamlined, user-friendly, and retail-forward experiences that were reshaping patient expectations.

Rush set out to simplify the appointment booking process, improve the patient experience, and enhance operational efficiency across teams. Their goal was to create a seamless, intuitive scheduling platform that empowers patients to quickly find and book the right care while supporting Rush’s broader commitment to enhancing access and competing digitally.

To meet these objectives, Rush partnered with Modea to develop Click for Care, a patient-centered scheduling experience designed to reimagine care access and streamline the patient journey.

Our Approach

Stakeholder and User Research

Modea collaborated closely with Rush stakeholders across marketing, digital strategy, IT, and patient access to define a clear product vision prioritizing ease of access for patients and operational efficiency for internal teams. We also leveraged Modea’s extensive healthcare user research and behavioral studies to ensure every product decision was rooted in a deep understanding of patient behavior and internal workflows.

Our research focused on simplifying appointment access by addressing patient pain points, optimizing call center workflows, and resolving backend scheduling complexities. This user-centric approach ensured that both patient needs and operational realities were thoroughly considered from the outset.

Product Strategy

Through collaborative sessions, Modea and Rush established a clear vision for a unified appointment experience centered around symptom search and guided triage. The strategy prioritized simplifying navigation, reducing booking friction, and delivering a mobile-first, accessible experience. Personalized care pathways were designed to tailor options by symptom, urgency, and location.

We worked with Rush to determine a phased rollout plan that would minimize disruption and encourage adoption across teams. This approach ensured alignment on patient experience goals and operational priorities.

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UX/UI Design

With the strategy in place, Modea crafted a modern user interface focused on clarity, simplicity, and patient empowerment. The design presents a condition-first scheduling model enabling one-click access to care based on symptom input, simplifying patient decision-making and providing a foundation for expanding to other service lines.

The UI delivers a unified care pathway sequence, clearly differentiating urgent care, primary care, and virtual specialty care options based on urgency and location. In-person care options are still prominent, ensuring patients can still easily access traditional services alongside virtual offerings.

Frequent collaboration and review sessions with Rush stakeholders ensured the UI design balanced patient needs, operational priorities, accessibility standards, brand alignment, and usability throughout the creative process.

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Website Development

Modea’s engineering team translated the vision and design into reality. We updated the Drupal backend and theme to support new scheduling features while ensuring a consistent brand experience across all Rush web properties. To do this, we created a reusable component library that will allow for future enhancements consistent with Rush’s new brand standards. We took a rigorous approach to product quality, focusing on performance optimization to deliver a fast and responsive experience. This was especially important on mobile devices, which serve as the primary access point for many Rush patients.

A critical part of the development was the integration with Epic MyChart via deep links, preserving essential backend workflows while enabling an intuitive front-end user experience. Modea also implemented Fabric, an AI-powered chatbot that offers personalized symptom triage and guides patients through the scheduling process.

Together, these technical advancements support Rush’s digital transformation goals and help improve care access for patients.

Solution

Rush now offers patients a centralized, convenient digital scheduling experience along with a scalable framework for future innovation in virtual care and personalization. The project delivered a condition-first model that simplifies scheduling across service lines, a unified UI that balances ease of use with backend functionality, Epic MyChart integration to ensure continuity and patient data integrity, and AI-powered chatbot support through Fabric.

Results

Within six months of launching the new appointment hub, Rush saw:

86% increase in appointment page views
23% increase in appointment scheduling clickthroughs
2.5x increase in virtual specialty care appointments

For Rush, this is more than a new user interface. It is a strategic shift toward a digital ecosystem that delivers a better experience for every patient.

Accessibility Compliance

We maintained accessibility standards throughout the design and development process. The product was built to meet the latest WCAG AA compliance standards, and we conduct ongoing accessibility audits and testing across all devices and user flows.

Technologies Used

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“Click for Care [represents] a foundational shift in how patients engage with Rush—simple, guided, and digital-first.”

- Senior Director, Digital & Web Strategy at Rush

Key Takeaways

By integrating a user-centered strategy with a guided triage model, Rush made it easier for patients to access care and book appointments. Close collaboration between Modea and Rush kept internal teams aligned on patient experience goals, while Epic MyChart integration ensured seamless backend continuity. Together, these efforts led to the success of Click for Care and laid the foundation for Rush’s broader digital transformation and commitment to patient-first innovation.