NYU Langone Health x Tandon Research for Design Week 1 Progress
Last week, we were introduced to our sponsor, NYU Langone Health FuturePractice team, and were shared a problem statement for the project we are going to work on: How might NYU Langone Health improve its patient experience to be more inclusive, supportive, and positive for people who are transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer.
My group mapped out a project timeline at the end of the class, and for week 1, we all conducted researches individually to bring ideas to the next class about how we can narrow our topic for possible proposed solutions.
Research
For my research, I started by creating a quick questionnaire to hear personal experiences from people who identify themselves as transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer and figure out pain points in the current healthcare system.
Link to the questionnaire: https://forms.gle/rp2kM3GxXHNJd3Jf7
I reached out to a few NYU Instagram accounts (nyulgbtq, nyuqueerhealth, and nyusilverqtc)to ask if they could share the questionnaire with their audience, but I have no response so far.
For the next step, I conducted secondary researchers online to first learn about gender equity in health and transgender people in general.
Then, I researched the personal experiences people went through and read a few academic research reports to understand more about specific problems transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people encounter in healthcare.
Problems
After reading academic reports, news sites, articles, and real stories, I was able to narrow down the root problems to two:
- Avoidance of healthcare due to fear of discrimination
- Lack of knowledge on transgender-related issues and discrimination by healthcare professionals
Possible solution 1
Create a review app specific for transgender people to write and read reviews for health care providers.
This app will solve the first problem I stated above. By knowing other people’s experiences with certain physicians/hospitals/home care providers, it will be easier for transgender people to go seek everyday healthcare.
Possible solution 2
Add trans-specific information on NYULH’s Transgender Health page
Currently, there is a dedicated page for transgender people on NYU Langone Health’s website but there is no specific information about each physician. Adding and redesigning this page will not only make it easier for transgender people to seek inclusive and supportive healthcare at NYULH, but also encourage each physician to learn more about issues transgender people face and discrimination.
Next week
Our group is planning to share our research outcomes and discuss possible solutions we can work on in next week’s class to decide which pain point we could solve. Then, we are going to ideate the specific solution and conduct in-depth user interviews.
Personal learning outcomes
This week our group conducted researches individually and brainstormed potential solutions. The problem statement introduced by NYULH was something I have never experienced myself, as a heterosexual international student who has never received any medical care in the US, and has no friends or family who identify themselves as transgender who has received medical care in this country. Because of this, I wanted to conduct generative research to understand what transgender people experience in healthcare and directly hear about any problems or inconveniences they encounter, but reaching out to related social media accounts to collect direct responses for my questionnaire was harder than I initially expected. At this point, I have no idea how I can conduct in-depth researches on transgender people so I would have to rely on my teammates on that and conduct researches together.
Then, I conducted secondary research to understand the problem with gender equity in healthcare and come up with potential solutions. Personally, I learned a lot in this area through academic reports and articles, as I never knew how bad the disparities were between the healthcare cisgender adults receive and transgender adults receive. I was able to narrow down my findings and come up with two problems and solutions that my group could potentially work on. Through my research, I learned the importance of planning and creating a structure before starting, even for secondary researches. I first started searching online with some keywords without any direction but my findings were not cohesive, but when I set a structure for my research, finding the right information online got much easier and it made the research process more efficient. I am looking forward to meeting my teammates and sharing the solutions each member came up with in class.
