One-off pharmacy nomination / EMIS Health
Dedicated UX Designer · EMIS Web & EMIS X · NHS Wales, EPS Phase 2 · Shipped February 2025 · [3 months]
For prescribing clinicians issuing electronic prescriptions
The workflow problem
Pharmacy search looked like it worked. In practice, the same form behaved differently depending on which fields were filled in: a partial postcode demanded a name, a misspelling returned nothing, and the system gave no reason. Clinicians retried with different combinations while the patient waited.
Why it mattered
One-off nomination is used when something has gone wrong: the usual pharmacy is closed, it is out of hours, or the patient is on holiday. Silent failure here is not mild frustration. It risks a delayed or missed prescription.
6
search input combinations mapped in the old pharmacy search: 1 failed silently with no feedback, and 2 more gave an error or only partial results
From my review of how each input combination behaved. No analytics existed, so impact is not quantified.
My ownership
I led: problem framing, the map of how each input combination behaved, the error-state strategy, search layout and the design decision log, plus the EMIS X contextual-prompt concept.
We delivered: with Product, Engineering, the Clinical Design Group and Content, a postcode-first search on the new Service Search API, shipped in EMIS Web for EPS Phase 2 in NHS Wales.
Scenario 1
Invalid Postcode
User Correctable
Design response
The issue is recoverable, so the UI should not make the clinician feel the service has failed. The message explains the input problem and points to the next useful search route.
Clear recovery
Input issue, not system failure
Redirects to address or name search
Scenario 2
Postcode lookup unavailable
Partial recovery · inline banner
The Postcode search is currently unavailable
Try again later, or issue an EPS - Any Pharmacy or printed prescription instead. If this problem persists, contact Optum Help Centre.
Design response
The service is degraded, not fully broken. The postcode stays visible, entered information is not cleared, and the clinician can continue using the search paths that still work.
Postcode is kept
Address and name still work
No false full-service failure
Scenario 3
Pharmacy search service unavailable
Operational fallback
The pharmacy search service is currently unavailable.
Try again later, or issue an EPS - Any Pharmacy or printed prescription instead. If this problem persists, contact Optum Help Centre.
Design response
When search cannot continue, the interface should stop implying recovery through another input. It needs to clearly state the system issue and make the safest next step visible.
System issue
Search cannot continue
Safe next step is still visible
The decision I can defend
Postcode first, not postcode lookup.
Clinical Design Group confirmed that urgent prescribing usually starts with a postcode. So it moved to the top, focused on open and pre-filled with the registered postcode where available. Address and name search stayed visible but secondary, so a patient who does not know the postcode is not a dead end.
Also rejected: postcode lookup, because capability was inconsistent across EMIS products and broke parity with Primary Nomination. Disabling search when a service fails, because failures only show after an attempt. Auto-search on open, because it added API calls and returned results before the clinician had given any context.
Designed for the real system
No analytics, parity with Primary Nomination, API limits and failures visible only after a search all shaped scope. Errors were split by one question: what can the clinician still do next? Correct the input, continue by address or name, or fall back to EPS Any Pharmacy or a printed prescription.
Evidence and review
A map of six input combinations showing which worked, which errored and which failed silently. Three time-critical scenarios confirmed with the Clinical Design Group. A decision log reviewed with Product, Engineering, CDG and Content. [Add: practices or sessions observed.]
What the design established
What is not yet proven
Impact is qualitative, not measured, because search behaviour and error frequency had no analytics. Next step: instrument failures, retries and time to pharmacy selection after rollout. The EMIS X contextual prompt is a concept, pending service integrations and clinical safety governance.
Where it scales next · EMIS X concept, not shipped
Contextual prompting, not constant prompting.
In EMIS X, one-off nomination could surface inside the medication issue flow only when context suggests the usual route may not work, for example when the primary pharmacy appears closed. The manual route always stays available.
Standard first
No prompt when the nominated route looks suitable. Only high-confidence signals trigger one.
Recommend, don't decide
The prompt explains why it appeared. It never auto-selects or changes the pharmacy.
Validate before scale
Gated on service integrations, data reliability and clinical safety review. Measure acceptance, override rate and time to selection.
It was not a better pharmacy search. It was helping clinicians understand what to do next when the usual dispensing route was no longer suitable.