DSTN x atalmedial – Unilabs
May 2026
Why do this?
Working at the Care & Information Center at atalmedial – Unilabs connects me directly with doctors, specialists, and patients every day. While my main job is helping healthcare professionals, our confusing website means stressed patients also call us out of frustration.
Navigating the complaints from doctors and patients firsthand showed me exactly how hard it is to reach common goals on the atalmedial – Unilabs platform, and it’s giving me valuable insights needed to design a better solution for both groups.
Also, why not.
Three Project Goals
To track the success of this project, goals are measured at key moments:
- Goal 1: Measured continuously during production and after finalization.
- Goal 2: Evaluated once the finalized product is launched.
- Goal 3: Assessed as soon as user testing begins.
1. Apply Design
Thinking
Showcase my capability to independently research, ideate, and prototype solutions for complex UX challenges.
2. Optimize the
Digital Experience
- To advise atalmedial – Unilabs how to improve on overall usability and digital experience by their users.
3. Restoring the
User's Trust
To eliminate high-friction pain points in the user journey, helping the organization restore its reputation as a reliable healthcare provider.
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Ultimately, the overall goal was simply to have some fun tackling a great UX challenge and sharpen my design skills.
Meet atalmedial
Atalmedial is the largest diagnostic laboratories in the Netherlands with over 160 locations from Amsterdam and surrounding to Alphen aan den Rijn, providing critical services such as blood testing, thrombosis care and function testing.
Since late 2023, atalmedial along with SALTRO, SHO and MEDLON have been taken over by Unilabs, an international diagnostic services provider.
Two AIs, 83 reviews and
a Design Thinking Process
As an atalmedial-Unilabs employee, I paired my unique internal insights with AI-driven data analysis to uncover critical pain points across atalmedial.nl and its new parent platform, unilabs.nl.
To make sure that my suspicions are accurate, I cross-validated my findings using two independent AI agents (Claude and Gemini) to eliminate bias and firmly establish the B2B and B2C friction points. I also scanned through the 83 reviews myself to triple confirm.
Following a Design Thinking workflow, I conducted desk-research, benchmark analysis, and customer journey mapping. The final insights were refined and validated throughout the process by UX and Product Design experts from DHL, ABN Amro and ServiceNow.
This is the situation
The current atalmedial.nl platform forces two completely different user groups into a single, disorienting experience. Due to a confusing layout, poor web accessibility and a frustrating booking system, online patient reviews have dropped to a 1.6 out of 5-star. (Trustpilot, 2026)
To build a clear roadmap for a redesign, I used AI agents Gemini and Claude to independently analyse both the main website and its connecting sites, e.g. atalmedial.prikafspraak.nl.
The following are categorised by how often these points have been mentioned by the users.
Healthcare Professionals are looking for:
- Quick contact details for the different laboratory departments: Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology or Thrombosis
- Testing guidelines, Turnaround time (TAT = doorlooptijd in Dutch) and information on how to opt in to receive test results automatically
- How and where to make, change, add or cancel an order
- Patients trying to complete urgent tasks, like:
- - How to book an appointment and receive a confirmation of the appointment
- - Finding information on how, when and where to hand in samples
- - Finding information on their (special) tests, how much a test costs or the right contact details to reach the right department
- Get notified and be able to understand what their lab results mean.
Restoring the
User's Trust
To eliminate high-friction pain points in the user journey, helping the organization restore its reputation as a reliable healthcare provider.
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Big player in the market
To understand where the organisation stands, I mapped out and summarised its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Atalmedial is a well-established diagnostic lab in the Amsterdam region, recently taken over by Unilabs, Europe's largest diagnostics group. Atalmedial has a strong clinical reputation, a wide network of locations, and existing digital tools. The Unilabs backing brings investment and room to grow.
But the digital experience is a problem. Patients deal with six separate portals, a broken website and booking system, and a website full of jargon. The rebrand to Unilabs added confusion without explanation.
The opportunity is obvious: merge everything into one simple portal. Unilabs is already investing in this, and sister lab Saltro has tools atalmedial could adopt today. The risks are real though. Patients are already switching to competitors, trust is fragile during the merger and slow action on the digital side could make things worse fast.
Conclusion SWOT
The Problem
While joining Unilabs gives Atalmedial more money and power, the actual website is frustrating to use every day.
The Risk
During a big company transition, users are highly sensitive to change. If the digital tools stay broken, patients will leave for competitors.
The Goal
Redesigning the website isn't just about making it look pretty, it is a necessary business strategy to keep customers satisfied with the overall service and keep a positive brand image.
Strategic Takeaway
In short: atalmedial is a great medical company with a confusing website. "The website is currently a barrier that makes it hard for users to access our services. The main goal of this redesign is to change that by making the website clean, visually appealing, and much smarter at providing essential information and handling online appointments."
Who does it better and how?
To understand how atalmedial compares, I looked at who patients are already switching to and what the best healthcare websites in the world are doing differently.
On the competitor side, the picture is clear. Patients frustrated with atalmedial are moving to De Nationale Trombose Dienst for thrombosis care, rated 9.1 out of 10, and to AMC or SALT for blood draws. Meanwhile, sister lab SALTRO, part of the same Unilabs group, has already built a plain-language results portal that atalmedial could adopt today. Diagnostiek voor U, a comparable regional lab, proves that offering everything into one patient portal is absolutely doable at this scale.
For benchmarks, I looked at globally recognised examples. Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, both winners of the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, show that a great healthcare homepage really only needs three things: find a doctor, find a location, book an appointment.
The NHS Design System sets the standard for accessible, research-driven design. And Thriva's documented results page redesign is a direct blueprint for how atalmedial could present lab results in a way patients actually understand. The takeaway is simple: the solutions atalmedial needs already exist. Some are just a few departments away.
Benchmarks
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