A Heuristic Evaluation of WD-Home’s ADL and Medication Management Tool for Caregivers at Home and in Assisted Living
Revolutionizing Elderly Care: Health Tech That Captures Every Aspect of Daily Living
Caregiving is an essential yet under-recognized pillar of healthcare. Across the globe, family members primarily, but also paid aids, and volunteers devote immense emotional, mental, and physical energy in supporting older adults in community—often without adequate infrastructure or finances. The burden is only expected to grow as the U.S. populations disproportionately ages beyond 65 years and access to paid caregivers diminishes due to cost and workforce shortages.
One of the most pressing gaps in caregiving is the lack of systematic documentation. Without timely and accurate records of symptoms, routines, and behavioral changes, many preventable hospitalizations are missed until it is too late. Also the lack of information sharing technology means the ability to create, maintain and direct a social safety net is lost. Existing digital tools remain limited, especially for caregivers in the home,
rarely capturing the full complexity of an elderly individual’s daily life. Measurement in terms of outcomes is practically non-existent.
WD-Home steps into this gap. By offering an easy-to-use, modern, protocol-driven platform, it enables caregivers to track, document, communicate and anticipate health risks in real time.
What Is WD-Home & How Is It Helping?
WD-Home is a digital health platform built to organize and measure the vital work of caregivers—helping them prioritize tasks, monitor health risks, and communicate findings efficiently. Unlike many existing tools, it is designed with caregivers in mind, offering robust features for documentation, coordination, and care measurement.
At its core, WD-Home provides:
- Medical protocol driven risk alerts that flag early signs of health decline and potential hospitalization risks.
- Caregiver-friendly documentation tools to capture daily routines, symptoms, and mood, making timely insights actionable.
- Activity and wellness feeds for families and caregiver manager dashboards enable real-time transparency and alignment across caregiving teams.
- Unlimited caregiver invites, builds a caregiver network around each elderly individual so no needs falls through the cracks.
Another powerful innovation (developed by the same team) is MedView, an advanced medication management platform for senior living facilities and newly, home care settings. MedView functions as an electronic medication administration record (eMAR), providing comprehensive medication logs for audits and compliance, while providing real time analysis of medication safety using the American Geriatrics Society BEERS criteria®—helping reduce adverse events including ER visits and dangerous hospitalization
Evaluation of WD-Home and MedView
Methodology
HITLAB conducted a heuristic evaluation of the WD-Home and MedView web platforms and mobile applications. Using Jakob Nielsen’s usability principles, the evaluation simulated experiences of two primary user types:
- A 44-year-old accountant caring for his 79-year-old mother at home.
- A 27-year-old medication technician working in a senior living facility.
Findings
Strengths
Both WD-Home and MedView platforms demonstrated strong usability and a clear focus on caregiver needs. WD-Home stood out for its intuitive design, straightforward navigation, and minimal learning curve, making it accessible even for first-time users. Caregivers can log a wide range of daily activities—from meals and bathing to rest patterns and health events such as fevers or falls—ensuring that no important detail is overlooked. Its ability to link multiple caregivers to one individual also helps distribute responsibilities and reduce caregiver burden. The app also scores high in accessibility as it is available for both android and iOS phones.
MedView showed particular strength in medication management within senior living facilities. It provides a structured, comprehensive record of medication administration while also offering real-time insights and risk tracking.
Most notably, the integration of a medical protocol driven drug safety analysis and reporting tool into WD-Home and MedView adds a layer of clinical intelligence.
This has important uses in serving as a firsthand data for policy makers on dangerous medicines that are paid for by insurers and families. MedView coupled with WD-Home allows access to an evidence-based drug safety reports to discuss and reconcile with doctors.
Recommendations
HITLAB’s evaluation identified some minor opportunities to further strengthen WD-Home’s usability and caregiver experience. Simplifying button layouts and overall design could create a cleaner, more focused interface, while making drug safety reports downloadable in a larger, easy-to-read format would enhance accessibility for caregivers and clinicians alike. In addition, a well-organized help section—with searchable FAQs and written guides alongside video tutorials—would provide timely support when needed. These small changes would make the robustly built platforms more intuitive and convenient for users.
Future Potential & Key Takeaways
WD-Home represents the future of caregiving: data-driven, user-friendly, and preventive. By capturing everyday activities and medication routines, it empowers caregivers to spot risks early, prevent emergencies, and share responsibility across a network.
For families: It reduces emotional and logistical burden by coordinating care and catching problems before they escalate. It also gives them access to education and awareness of the care recipient’s prescriptions through the drug safety analysis.
For facilities: It streamlines medication management, reduces errors, and provides leadership and policy makers with evidence-based action steps around medication safety
“Digital tools like WD-Home aren’t just improving how we cater to elderly health management—they’re fundamentally shifting the paradigm toward more proactive, personalized, and preventative care.” — Stan Kachnowski, Chair, HITLAB
With ongoing refinements and the adoption of HITLAB’s recommendations, WD-Home has the potential to become a cornerstone of modern caregiving—reducing hospitalizations, easing caregiver stress, and setting a new standard for elderly care in both homes and assisted living.
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