LinkHMS — Pylyp Pistolkors

Problem

Hospital software ignores the small clinic

Most HMS products are heavy, dated and aimed at large hospitals. Smaller clinics and solo practitioners are left juggling paper records and slow tools that were never meant for them.

ChallengeDesign a streamlined system that covers the core needs of most clinics and individual practitioners.

SolutionCombine and improve on the strongest features of competitors to simplify internal cooperation and patient–clinic interaction.

Research

What makes a hospital system work

I surveyed 12 healthcare professionals, interviewed 5 of them and analysed 4 competing products to understand how they manage patients, scheduling and communication.

Clinicians juggle several systems for records, appointments and communication.
Staff value being able to tailor patient records and scheduling to their own workflow.
Existing tools feel outdated, hard to use and unreliable.
A clear dashboard for scheduling and patients is essential for quick decisions.

The old software we’re using is extremely slow and clunky. It takes forever to update patient records or schedule appointments, and half the time, the system crashes.

Abdoulaye B., Doctor

Handwritten records make managing appointments difficult and time-consuming. A modern system would save time and prevent mistakes.

Priya S., Administrative Assistant

I grouped the findings in an affinity diagram, graded features by importance and built a persona — Kwame, a physical therapist working across several public and private clinics — to test every decision against.

Meet Kwame, the primary user

Name: Kwame, 36
Occupation: Physical therapist
Location: Central Africa
Archetype: The Efficient Caregiver
Environment: Multiple public and private clinics
Tech: 100% desktop

“Managing patient records and appointments was a constant struggle with slow software and endless paperwork. It took time away from patient care.”

Goals

Faster access to medical records.
Streamlined appointment scheduling.
Less administrative workload.
Better communication with other staff.

Frustrations

Outdated systems that delay access to patient data.
Difficulty managing large volumes of paperwork.
Lack of integration between different departments.

Personality

Conscientious and reliable.
Organized and open-minded.
Empathetic and adaptable.

Process

From sketches to a tested flow

I started with hand-drawn sketches to decide what each screen needed, then mapped the user flow and built a low-fidelity prototype in Figma. A usability study showed where the task flow broke down; a second round confirmed the fixes before any high-fidelity work.

User flow covering registration, scheduling, patients, medical records and administration

Low-fidelity wireframe of the doctors schedule grid

Low-fidelity wireframe of the patients list

Low-fidelity wireframe of a patient summary with recent visits, tests, diagnoses and prescriptions

Low-fidelity wireframe of a patient’s records history with a category menu

Scope

From the front desk to the finance office

LinkHMS covers a clinic’s whole day. Before the flows themselves, here is the look and the building blocks every screen shares.

Schedule and queueDoctors’ appointments on a timeslot grid and a daily live queue by status: book, edit, cancel, start and complete visits.

Patients and recordsA searchable patient registry and an electronic record for every patient to view and add clinical entries, with photo upload.

Visits and admissionsDocument a visit — vitals, diagnoses, prescriptions, analyses, services — convert it to an admission and follow it through discharge.

Billing and claimsItemised invoices, payments, printing and sending, and insurance claims tracked from draft through submission to the insurer’s decision.

PharmacyPrescription orders dispensed from stock and billed to the patient or the insurer, and a medicine inventory with CSV or Excel upload.

LaboratoryLab orders tracked by status, results entered with attachments and sent to the patient, and custom test templates next to the built-in ones.

ReportsOperational reports on admissions, diagnoses, lab tests, patient flow and antenatal care, and finance reports on what was billed, collected and is outstanding.

Administration and HRDepartments, services, insurance providers with plan-based pricing, API keys, and staff accounts with roles and weekly schedules.

Settings and permissionsAccount and clinic details, invoice text, working hours, subscription billing and view and edit permissions for every role.

Visual identity

Calm, clinical, recognisable

With that much to cover, the product needed a face of its own. A distinct identity set LinkHMS apart from dated competitors. The UI takes its cue from modern healthcare facilities: clean, minimal and patient-centric.

A variety of Google Icons was also used.

Design system

Small pieces, used everywhere

To keep the interface consistent as it grows, I defined design tokens for numeric values, colour and type, and built every component on top of them.

Numeric tokens for spacing and corner radius, and colour tokens: neutrals and ten accent hues in twelve steps

Typography: Roboto Flex for the interface and Manrope for buttons, with the full size scale

The components follow the atomic approach: small elements first, then the blocks assembled from them.

Atoms: buttons, tags, record type chips and small status labels

Molecules and organisms: filters, tabs, page titles, a search field, a date picker, a section menu, metric cards and text inputs

Key decisions

Nine flows that run a clinic

With the identity and the components in place, here are the flows where speed mattered most.

Set up a clinic with a guided tour

There is one LinkHMS for everyone: a doctor working alone gets every feature, and a clinic team shares the same system with roles. After sign-up, a guided tour walks through the first set-up: it creates a department, a service and a user, ticking them off in a “Let’s set up your clinic” checklist, and the home screen keeps the remaining steps in view. The tour can be skipped and restarted at any time from the menu.

Clinic registration form with Google sign-in, clinic details and terms

Home screen after sign-up with quick actions, a trial notice, a clinic set-up progress bar and recommended next steps

Welcome message of the onboarding tour with a Start Tour button

Administration with an empty departments list: a tooltip points at New Department, next to the Let’s set up your clinic checklist and a Skip Tour button

New Department form with a tooltip about naming the department and setting its status

The checklist now has Create Department ticked, and a tooltip points at the Services tab

An empty services list with a tooltip pointing at New Service

New Service form: name, status, type, departments, price and duration, with a tooltip explaining that a service can belong to several departments

A tooltip points at the Human Resources section in the side menu, with departments and services ticked in the checklist

Empty Human Resources list with a tooltip pointing at New User and the available roles

New User form with a note that the user is charged on the next subscription invoice and a tooltip about the email invitation

Congratulations message at the end of the tour, with all three checklist items ticked and an End Tour button

The onboarding tour — departments first, then the services they offer and the people who provide them: from the welcome message to “You’re all set”.

Booking ahead and walk-ins

Receptionists create an appointment for a specific doctor in just a few clicks, straight from the schedule. Not every patient books ahead, though: the Live Queue shows the day’s visits by status — waiting, ongoing, completed or cancelled — with urgent cases marked in red, and every row can start or complete a visit, convert it to an admission or open the patient’s profile. A walk-in is added in the same New Visit dialog, which finds the patient by name or phone number.

Doctors schedule grid with colour-coded appointment statuses and a new appointment slot

New Visit dialog with patient details, doctor, date and a service search

Live Queue: today’s visits with urgency, doctor, service and status, and a row menu to start or complete a visit, convert it to an admission, edit or cancel it

Patients at the centre, with the right to be forgotten

The patient is the main entity of the system. Every record can be removed completely on the patient’s request, in line with the data-privacy needs raised in research.

Patients list with search, filters, CSV upload and a row menu with Edit and Delete

Delete Patient dialog warning that the action is permanent and asking for confirmation

A medical record you can scan in seconds

The electronic medical record is split into sections and subsections, so a doctor jumps straight to what matters in an emergency.

Patient summary with recent visits, samples and tests, diagnoses and prescriptions

Patient records history with a category menu and colour-coded record types

Prescriptions and drug administration chart: medicines with route, dosage and status, a log of non-prescribed medications and Log Dose buttons

Vaccinations: a schedule grid by age with each vaccine marked completed, scheduled, overdue, refused, excluded or contraindicated

A patient photo without leaving the record

A photo is added right from the patient’s record: upload a file or take one with the device camera, check it, then save. If the file has the wrong format, the dialog says which formats work, and it warns before unsaved changes are lost.

Patient record history with the cursor on the patient’s photo placeholder next to the name

Patient photo dialog over the record with a placeholder, Upload Photo and Open Camera buttons and a disabled Save

Patient photo dialog with a chosen photo, a delete icon, Take New and an active Save button

Patient photo dialog after saving, with a success message

Patient photo dialog with an invalid file format error listing the accepted formats

One visit, two bills

Insurance is handled item by item. When a claim is created, everything the patient’s plan covers or needs to authorise goes to the insurer as a single claim, and anything not covered is billed to the patient on a separate invoice. The insurer’s decision is then recorded line by line, and the claim keeps both invoices and a change log in one place.

Billing claims list with filters by status, type and insurance provider, totals and colour-coded statuses

New Claim, step two: linking the claim to a visit and adding services and medications, with a note on how covered and not covered items are billed

New Claim with items added: each medication shows its coverage, and not covered items are marked to be billed to the patient on a separate invoice

Claim details: patient, insurer, visit and dates, items with coverage and the insurer’s decision, and separate insurance and patient invoices

Edit Invoice: balance and payments, linked claim, insurance provider, invoice items, discount and the details printed on the invoice

Reports that point to the problem

Finance reports open on six numbers — billed, collected, outstanding, collection rate, average invoice and denied claims — followed by the trend, revenue by department, the payment mix and the claim pipeline. Clicking a tile or a chart segment filters the “Attention needed” table of flagged invoices below, and each invoice opens in one click.

Finance overview report: KPI tiles, billed versus collected trend, revenue by department, payment method mix, claim pipeline, top ten rankings and a table of invoices that need attention

Six roles, each with the right access

Admins, doctors, nurses, receptionists, lab workers and pharmacists each get their own set of permissions. Access is set per section and sub-section, with view and edit rights apart, and can always be reset to the defaults.

Settings, Permissions tab: six roles with the number of active users in each

Receptionist permissions: sections and sub-sections with separate view and edit checkboxes and a Reset Permissions button

A subscription that grows with the team

The price is counted per seat: an administrator, plus every doctor, nurse, receptionist or lab worker added in HR. A doctor working alone pays for one seat and still gets every feature; a clinic adds seats as it hires. The plan screen compares monthly and annual billing side by side, and a notice warns that a newly added user is charged on the next invoice.

Subscription payment summary: seats per role with totals, a notice that new users are charged on the next invoice and a link to manage users in HR

Subscription plan: seats per role priced monthly and annually side by side, with the current plan marked and an upgrade to annual billing

Add Payment Method dialog over the payment summary: continue to payment with a card or choose an alternative payment method, with ways to get help

Patient portal

The same record, from the patient’s side

Patients sign in with their email and a six-digit one-time code. The home screen gathers their prescriptions, conditions, appointments and test results, and booking takes a single page: clinic, specialty, doctor and service with its price, then a day in the coming week and a free timeslot. A test result lists every parameter against its reference range, flags what is out of range and downloads as a PDF. The portal works on phones too.

Patient portal home with cards for prescriptions, conditions, appointments, tests, booking, telemedicine and log out

Book an Appointment: clinic, specialty, doctor and service with price, a choice of day in the next seven days, available timeslots and a summary before sending the request

Test result for a basic metabolic panel: patient, order and test info, and a results table with units, reference values and flagged values, with a PDF download

Next steps

There is no limit to perfection

What started with registration, scheduling, patients and the medical record grew over two and a half years into a full clinic system: a live queue, admissions with beds and discharge, billing and insurance claims, a pharmacy, a laboratory, reports and a patient portal. The product can grow in several directions:

Reminders and online payments — appointment reminders for patients, and invoices paid from the portal instead of at the front desk.
Insurers connected directly — claims sent to the insurer and decisions received inside LinkHMS, without retyping them by hand.
Stock that watches itself — low-stock alerts and reorder suggestions based on what the pharmacy actually dispenses.
Insight beyond reports — trends in patient flow, revenue and diagnoses, with an early warning when something drifts.
Chains of clinics — one account for several branches, with shared patients, per-branch schedules and consolidated reports.