Kapelse (Pharmagest group)

e‑health solutions K‑Line card reader range — innovation study

The object­ive of the study was to design three e‑health solu­tions, around the Carte Vitale (e‑health card) for pro­fes­sion­als in the med­ic­al world. We worked firstly on the iden­tity range, for a con­sist­ent design between dif­fer­ent solu­tions, and secondly on the design of each of the product solu­tions with­in the con­straints of use (fixed solu­tion, mobile solu­tion, on shelves solution).

The Carte Vitale is the nation­al French health insur­ance card. It is used by doc­tors to pre­scribe drugs and keep­ing track of all patient’s med­ic­al records. Hospitals & Visiting nurses use the card as well for the same reas­ons. Pharmacists use it to check the pre­scrip­tions before deliv­er­ing drugs. People use the card to show their health cov­er­age, and pay only their tier, the health sys­tem pay­ing the rest of the prescriptions.

Commercial results

It was the first product of Kapelse, on a very niche market (French hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacy) dominated by 2 major players. Kapelse came last and with the most expensive device on the market, but our design helped them to sell over 100 000 social card readers in 3 years!

We don’t usu­ally get com­mer­cial res­ults from our cli­ents. But when we do, we like to share it with the world, as it is the best proof of the value of our work.

The K1 is a small Carte Vitale card read­er expec­ted to be placed on the coun­ters of phar­ma­cies, and doc­tors’ offices. The product can be used either ver­tic­ally or hori­zont­ally, and integ­rates cable man­age­ment sys­tem, thanks to the design of its foot. The K1 allows the user to place the Carte Vitale card in one of the two loc­a­tions (any of the 2 slots). But the users can also put their private insur­ance card along­side the Carte Vitale sys­tem, a func­tion that is not yet avail­able in France, but which K‑Line range is already including.

The K3 is a port­able ver­sion, to be used by vis­it­ing nurses, to allow them to save time in the estab­lish­ment of dif­fer­ent admin­is­trat­ive records related to the care of their patients.

K2 is a Tablet for a double func­tion:
-to provide inform­a­tion on drugs in phar­ma­cies self-service,
-to optim­ize the health­care exper­i­ence of seni­ors, and allow them to be in com­mu­nic­a­tion with their doc­tors, remotely.

Backstage of the project

Market Analysis

The mar­ket of Carte Vitale read­ers does not show any design intent (style, ergo­nom­ics, fam­ily look for a range or products, trend…). Existing products are derived from pay sta­tions. Overall, the style is sketchy, even stark. We noted a design attempt from Ingenico for the IWL mod­el, which retains the struc­tur­al ele­ments of pay­ment ter­min­als (pay­ment ter­min­al key­board, keys in rub­ber, col­ors…). There is no adapt­a­tion between pay­ment ter­min­als style to bet­ter fit the med­ic­al universe.

When we ana­lyze the indir­ect com­pet­i­tion, with pay­ment ter­min­als, some products show real design efforts to stand out from the com­pet­i­tion and also to bring real products match­ing their primary func­tion: pay­ment by card. Some high­light the privacy/security when you type its code (see product Atos Worldline). The products are more attractive.

Trend Analysis

The med­ic­al world is rel­at­ively sober in terms of design research (includ­ing form­ally speak­ing). The products are usu­ally com­plex, hence the trend to bring sim­pler, even min­im­al­ist­ic designs, straight­for­ward designs which put for­ward the func­tion of the product, rather than its tech­no­logy. There is a game of con­trasts in col­ors and lines of forces, to form­ally struc­ture the product.

The second board comes to bring sources of inspir­a­tions from related uni­verse (elec­tron­ic con­sumer products, PDAs, smartphones…).

The K‑line’s style will be between the Medical Universe board (very codi­fied and sim­pli­fied in terms of col­or and shapes) and the Inspiration board (strained curves, sug­ges­tion of tech­no­logy, tact­ile pleas­ure); simple lines and a col­or scheme to link the K‑line to the med­ic­al world, and to soft­ness and sen­su­al­ity of cur­rent tech­no­lo­gic­al products.

Design research

Excerpt from sketch­book, includ­ing ele­ments for the pro­tec­tion of the screen for the K3 version.

Concept stage

Initial concept of the K1, to be used in phar­ma­cies or doc­tors’ offices. The shape of the hull of the K1 with his foot allows easi­er cable man­age­ment (between the shell and the foot).

Concept stage

Initial concept of the K2, with its remov­able bat­tery and its VESA sup­port, for install­a­tion in pharmacies.

Concept stage

Initial concept of the K3, destined for vis­it­ing nurses, with integ­rated screen protection.

Technical follow-up

Various solu­tions of intern­al archi­tec­tures were thought by Nickel-Chrome, from the tech­nic­al choices of Kapelse, in par­tic­u­lar to make the K1 the smal­lest pos­sible in size, depend­ing on the neces­sary PCB board sur­face area, the screen, con­nect­ors, and the 3 embed­ded card read­ers (a card for the doc­tor / phar­macist, which remains in the device), a remov­able Carte Vitale card for the patient, and anoth­er remov­able card, for the man­age­ment of his private health insurance.