User Workflow Development in MedTech: Bridging the Gap Between Innovation and Usability
In the MedTech industry, developing a successful product goes far beyond technical performance; it must seamlessly integrate into the user’s workflow.
For many MedTech organisations, this presents the challenge of aligning product development with the clinical pathway and integrating real-world clinical needs. A siloed approach to this aspect of development can be problematic and will often lead to a muddled product which will require further development.
So, how do MedTech companies ensure their product development pathway is optimised and avoid fragmentation in their delivery, which often comes with scale?
Avoid the pitfall of assumptions
Not questioning internal assumptions about how users interact with devices can lead to the downfall of even the best of innovations. It is crucial to integrate early and continuous user engagement into any product development programme to mitigate the risk of developing a solution that doesn’t reflect actual clinical practices, resulting in costly redesigns or poor adoption rates. Assumptions, while well-intentioned, should be mitigated within usability studies.
Complexity of clinical environments
Clinical workflows are rarely linear or uniform. They vary not only between countries, regions and institutions but also between individual users. It can be extremely difficult to capture this complexity when development teams are removed from the clinical setting.
This disconnect can lead to oversimplified designs that fail to support the nuanced tasks clinicians perform daily. This highlights the absolute requirement of clinical needs, the clinical pathway and the product development roadmap being thoroughly aligned.
The value of early user research
Techniques such as contextual inquiry, shadowing, and Day In The Life (DITL) studies provide invaluable user insights. However, technical development is often prioritised over user validation. By delaying this step, usability issues that are expensive and time-consuming to fix, often emerge later in the development.
At eg technology, we advocate for embedding user research early in the development process to mitigate this risk and optimise the development.
Navigating regulatory and safety constraints
Medical device development comes with the added complexity of regulatory constraints – a landscape which many companies find difficult to navigate. Misalignment between product design and clinical pathways can lead to compliance issues, delays in approval, or even product recalls.
Alignment can be particularly challenging when there are numerous departments, stakeholders and teams in the mix. Therefore, integrating workflow development with regulatory strategy from the outset is essential to mitigate these risks.
Cross-disciplinary collaboration
As mentioned above, effective workflow development requires inter-departmental alignment.
Greenlight Guru’s 2025 Medical Industry Benchmark Study recently shared that ‘One in three companies report their quality management efforts are siloed, and the larger and more mature the company, the worse the silos and related problems’. They also specify that ‘companies who reported being highly collaborative are six times more likely to meet their quality objectives, demonstrating the importance of breaking down silos’.
Establishing effective communication channels and aligning engineering, clinical, and user experience team will promote collaboration, accelerate development and minimise development costs, optimising your route to market.
Map out your workflow
For the development of a medical device or diagnostic, it can be beneficial to map out the user workflow in relation to the clinical pathway, with special attention to where the test, device and other aspects intersect. By mapping out your workflow, the interdependencies between the different pathways are highlighted. This enables you to identify ways of integrating your product or test into existing pathways and lower the barrier to adoption.
To illustrate the steps involved, we have created a simplified example of a workflow below; you can learn more about how we created this diagram in our previous user workflow blog.
How eg technology can help
At eg technology, we help MedTech organisations of all sizes bridge the gap between innovation and usability by aligning product development with real-world clinical workflows. Our human-centred design approach embeds user insight from the outset, reducing assumptions, capturing clinical complexity, and supporting effective automation.
With extensive experience navigating the challenges of scale – such as team alignment, regulatory hurdles, and diverse user needs – we bring clarity, agility, and cross-disciplinary expertise to every stage of development. The result is intuitive, compliant, and technically robust devices that integrate seamlessly into clinical practice.
Ready to transform your MedTech product development?
To discover how we can help you design, engineer and develop with confidence and deliver with impact, please get in touch with our team today:
Via email on design@egtechnology.co.uk, by giving us a call on +44 01223 813184, or by clicking here.
