From Siloed to Seamless:
Designing CVS Health’s
Unified Scheduling Platform
Context
CVS Pharmacy and MinuteClinic ran siloed scheduling systems that resulted in user friction, costly operational inefficiencies, and missed cross-service opportunities. Executive leadership prioritized integrating the two flows after the optimized MinuteClinic appointment selection proved what a better experience could deliver.
Outcome / Impact
Unified the scheduling experience to strengthen brand consistency, reduce operational costs and design/tech debt, and drive 1M+ related services added to appointments.
My Role
- Product Design Lead unifying pharmacy and clinic flows for vaccine appointments, surfacing related care services, and leveraging recently redesigned appointment picker screens into new unified flow.
- Cross-functional strategy partner, aligned strategy in merging two backends, two design teams, two product teams, and navigating two, sometimes competing, lines of business stakeholders.
- Mentored designers in complexities of multiple MinuteClinic service flows, strategy in unifying pharmacy and clinic flows, and incorporating MinuteClinic appointment picker.
Problem / Challenge
Siloed Pharmacy and MinuteClinic scheduling flows were undermining patient experience, brand consistency, and operational efficiency, prompting CVS to set a goal of integrating them into a single, intuitive platform that would expand patient access to associated wellness services.
Strategic Approach to Integrating Two Flows
We balanced technical and business considerations with research‑backed logic to power larger, faster unified searches and intelligently order locations and services based on distance, availability, and what each location could actually deliver.
- Platform consolidation allowed us to boost backend processing power when querying both pharmacy and clinic locations instead of limiting dates or times shown.
- Displayed MinuteClinic and/or Pharmacy locations based on actual service availability: vaccines, COVID testing/treatment, and flu treatment offered at both; all other services surfaced only MinuteClinic locations.
- Used research and data to determine location ordering most beneficial for patients in choosing appointment for selected services.
Aligning Competing Business Units Stakeholders
Aligned competing business units around a unified scheduling strategy that prioritized patient needs and unlocked shared growth.
- Pharmacy and MinuteClinic business stakeholders at times had competing incentives, creating friction over revenue attribution and brand visibility in shared scheduling flow.
- “Turf wars” emerged around how mixed locations were ordered, with each business unit pushing for top placement.
- Research and analytics reframed the debate around patient needs, enabling a data‑driven path to alignment.
- Consensus formed around a unified scheduling approach where enterprise growth became the shared win.
Designing Unified Scheduling:
Service Recommendations
Integrated relevant vaccine and wellness recommendations
to guide patients toward complimentary services.
- Integrated recommendations directly into the scheduling flow to increase awareness of complimentary services at both Pharmacy and MinuteClinic.
- Ensured recommendations remained helpful, relevant, and aligned with patient needs without adding friction to the booking experience.
Designing Unified Scheduling:
Locations List Search & Filters
Improved usability by simplifying the path to results and
introducing context‑aware location and filter options.
- Moved ZIP code search to the top of the Locations screen, eliminating an entire step and accelerating location discovery.
- Partnered with engineering to enable device‑location detection, delivering more precise results, especially for mobile users.
- Introduced vaccine‑specific and store‑type filters, giving users more control and producing more relevant results.
Designing Unified Scheduling:
Combined Locations List
Cross-functional alignment led to a combined location list grounded in patient needs, using research‑driven criteria like proximity, appointment availability, and service fit to guide order of locations.
- Set location order by distance, showing Pharmacy or MinuteClinic first based on closest distance. Two locations with page load to balance loading efficiency with display of soonest available times per location.
- When Pharmacy and MinuteClinic share an address or distance, the site with the most soonest times appeared first; ties rotated for balance between business units.
- Displayed location type based on services offered: shared services (vaccines, COVID care, flu treatment) show both; all other services MinuteClinic only.
- Added one‑tap directions for each location to improve convenience and support quick decision‑making.
Designing Unified Scheduling:
Location Details Screen
Leveraged the recently redesigned MinuteClinic Appointment Picker for Unified Scheduling, keeping the critical elements patients relied on and adding new enterprise and store‑type cues to provide clarity and increase confidence in patient selections.
- Updated the header with enterprise branding and added business unit label above location address to keep patients oriented to location store-type.
- Showing only date options where appointments are available at the selected location as we previously solved the pain point of clicking dates and times and hitting dead-ends.
- Patient can view more dates and select from days with available appointments, continuing to meet user needs to have scheduling options beyond four days for many services.
Maintained structured appointment times of intuitive Morning, Afternoon, and Evening groups, keeping improved usability, accessibility, and simplified patient decision‑making.
Display times by Morning, Afternoon, & Evening to provide better usability.
- Times are easily scannable to find preferred time faster.
- Meets higher accessibility standards for reducing cognitive load.
Outcome / Impact
Unified the scheduling experience to strengthen brand consistency, reduce operational costs and design/tech debt, and drive 1M+ related services added to appointments.
Setting the Stage for CVS Super App Next-Generation Scheduling
Unified Scheduling became a mission‑critical workflow that enabled CVS Health’s Next‑Generation Scheduling in the Super App, where I led design as a Player/Coach Design Manager.
Let’s build great products together!
Jay Lawlor
Senior Product Designer
View other case studies
A Better Way to Book: Redesigning MinuteClinic’s Appointment Selection
From Siloed to Seamless:
Designing CVS Health’s Unified Scheduling Platform
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Designing CVS Super App’s Personalized Scheduling