As Ukraine’s everyday services rapidly shifted to digital-first experiences, healthcare lagged behind—especially in domains still anchored in in-person visits and paper trails. Medical laboratories were a prime example of this gap. In 2023, Dila Medical Laboratory, one of the country’s largest lab networks, partnered with The Gradient to reimagine how a traditional healthcare provider could become a true digital health partner, reshaping how people access, understand, and use their health data over time.
When the experience is broken across touchpoints
By 2023, Ukrainians' expectations were already digital-first — mobility, telecoms, banking, government — all managed through unified, always-available platforms. Against that backdrop, the Dila client journey felt fragmented.
The experience was split across disconnected touchpoints: physical branches as the main interface, phone-based coordination, and lab results delivered as static files. Each step existed in isolation, with no continuity between them.
This wasn't a usability issue but a structural one: the service was built around isolated interactions rather than a connected journey, and what users needed was not another touchpoint but a unified experience — a digital platform that translates Dila's physical presence into something always accessible, contextual, and built around the person and their health, not a single visit.
Health is not a transaction — it's a journey
On-site research, in-depth interviews, and observations made one thing clear: people don't come to a laboratory for a single reason. Some arrive with symptoms and an active diagnosis. Others are monitoring chronic conditions. Some want to prevent future issues, while others are actively optimising their wellbeing and lifestyle.
Each person represents a different level of health awareness, a different task, and different expectations from the service. This reframing became the foundation for every decision that followed. Personalisation is the key to providing a unified journey and creating a relationship.
Personalisation creates a relationship; a relationship creates loyalty. The existing experience, however, was built around short-term transactions rather than long-term health management.
Redefining the role of the laboratory
Once the motivations were clear, the role of the laboratory itself had to change. Instead of acting as a backend service that produces results, Dila began to move toward a new position: a partner that helps people understand their health over time.
That shift sounds subtle, but its implications are far-reaching. Results are no longer the end of the journey, but part of a longer story. Data needs context, explanation, and continuity. Digital touchpoints must support reflection and understanding, not just speed.
This new role shaped both brand thinking and product structure — long before any screens were designed.
Designing beyond internal systems
A common trap in healthcare digitalisation is designing around internal constraints: LIMS, CRM, operational workflows. While these systems matter, they shouldn't define the experience.
Instead, we designed from real life: how people receive lab referrals, how they share results with doctors, how they view the results months later, how doctors and patients make decisions together using history.
Only after mapping these real behaviours did we align them with technical and operational realities. Designs became requirements, not the other way round.
Making lab test results the centre of the experience
Most lab products revolve around orders: what was paid for, what was completed, and what can be downloaded. We deliberately challenged that pattern.
Orders exist for businesses. People are paying for lab test results.
That's why the main screen of the Dila app is built around lab test results and biomarkers, not transactions. By surfacing meaning and continuity instead of completed purchases, the interface gently shifts user attention from “what I bought” to “what is happening with my health over time”.
This single decision reshaped how users interact with their data — and how they think about returning to it.
Turning static results into living health data
Lab results are technically precise, but without context, they're hard to interpret. PDFs solve compliance requirements, not understanding.
We reframed results as living data: structured rather than static, comparable over time, shown in relation to personal reference norms and past values.
This doesn't replace doctors or medical judgment. Instead, it helps people notice patterns, ask better questions to doctors, and engage more meaningfully with their own health history.
Designing for families, not just individuals
Another reality often overlooked in healthcare products: one person frequently manages health for others. The family profile reflects this truth. One adult can coordinate tests, results, and history for children or relatives, while each family member retains a clear, separate health record.
This small structural decision removes friction and mirrors how health is managed in everyday life.
Improving the experience inside the branch
Digital transformation doesn't end at the app. Inside lab branches, workflows were redesigned around giving clients the shortest journey to getting blood collection.
The outcome is a calmer, more human in-branch experience — for both staff and visitors. And it is also much quicker.
What has changed in the end
The result of this work is not just a new mobile app, but a coherent digital ecosystem where strategy, brand, product, and operations reinforce the same idea.
For users, it means clearer health journeys and less anxiety. For doctors, better planning and continuity. For Dila, a unified service logic, fewer operational conflicts, and a digital model aligned with modern expectations.
Most importantly, the laboratory now supports an ongoing relationship with health, not a single visit.
How does this apply to your business?
Discuss with your AI.
Dima connects human behaviour insights with product logic — from launching fintech solutions like iVestor for Nasdaq Dubai to leading large-scale healthtech transformations in Ukraine.
