Week1. Project Kick off, Research, Brainstorm, Framing
Background Summary
As part of NYU Langone Health(NYULH), the FuturePractice lab at the Department of Medical Center Information Technology (MCIT) is developing technology-based solutions geared towards achieving better health equity. Studies indicate that sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are among the most marginalized and underserved populations in the health system.
Problem Statement
How might NYU Langone Health improve its patient experience to be more inclusive, supportive and positive for people who are transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer.
Stakeholder Interviews
In class, we were given an overview of the background by research participants from the MCIT, and I noted the following insights:
- As gender-inclusive healthcare is understudied at NYULH, it is vital to understand community patients’ needs and experiences.
- New York University Langone Health offers Telehealth and virtual care to all patients, but there is concern that digital devices may over simplify the process of getting health care and could create inconvenience to LGBTQ patients.
- The end solution does not need to be digital based, but it should have an impact no matter what format it is in.
Research Methods
Due to time constraints, we decided to spend half the week doing secondary research, and the rest of the week interviewing some people from our target audience. Also, we assigned tasks to each group member and used a Trello board to organize our process.
Secondary Research
With secondary research, we focused on three directions:
- Gender-inclusive Infrastructure in Healthcare
- Gender-inclusive design.
- Training and education programs to achieve gender equality for LGBTQ people.
Insights:
Research indicates that LGBTQ people are less likely to seek healthcare, and they continue to face discrimination in health settings and inferior healthcare compared to non-LGBTQ Americans.
Lambda Legal’s landmark study, When Health Care Isn’t Caring, found that 73% of transgender respondents and 29% of lesbians, gays, and bisexual respondents were concerned that they might be treated differently by medical staff because of their LGBTQ status.
A survey conducted by the Healthcare Equity Index (HEI) 2018 reports that, among 626 healthcare facilities surveyed, only 63% have policies that address both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” and only 53% have non-discrimination policies that are inclusive of LGBTQ employees.
HEI Report has certified NYU Langone as a facility providing equal healthcare access to LGBTQ+ patients seven years in a row for all of its locations. In these criteria, NYU Langone scored a perfect 100.
User Interview
We had a Zoom interview with Juli Grey-Owens who is a Long Island and New York State Transgender Community Advocate. Juli is a transgender woman who works at Gender Equality New York, where she regularly gives training to health care employees about the need for statewide civil rights for transgender people. Julia shared with us some of her training contents as well as some perspective on how to improve the problem during our interview.
Insights:
Transphobia makes it very difficult for transgender people to get proper treatment from their health providers.
Many trans people will be turned away by healthcare providers: “I don’t have experience with trans people”
Not all providers know how to deal with specialized transgender issues, including hormone therapy.
Mistreatment and rejection lead to disengagement from the transgender community, which ultimately results in poor health outcomes.
There is a lot of misinformation about the LGBTQ in current healthcare organizations, and there aren’t enough facilities specifically for LGBTQ people.
All healthcare organizations should create a safe space for LGBTQ people, both physically and mentally.
Reflection
This week, we’ve been able to gather numerous resources that will help us to understand the problem, so it’s been a very successful journey. In class last week, we had a kickoff for our project with stakeholders from NYULH; we were looking at the problem as an abstract concept; but now it has become clear and tangible.
In my experience, user research has often been a big pain in the beginning stages of a design project due to either limited resources and participants, or the lack of team collaboration. I’m glad we were able to manage the research process and assign each person tasks according to their interests and skills. Next, we will try to conduct another interview with a member of the target user group and analyze our findings.
Reference
Dives, D., Krasniansky, A., Ren, J., With help from:, DeSilva, J., Golden, I., & Zweig, M. (2021b, October 21). Enabling more inclusive healthcare: Four market approaches to LGBTQ+ digital health | Rock Health. Rock Health | We’re Powering the Future of Healthcare. Rock Health Is a Seed and Early-Stage Venture Fund That Supports Startups Building the next Generation of Technologies Transforming Healthcare. https://rockhealth.com/insights/enabling-more-inclusive-healthcare-four-market-approaches-to-lgbtq-digital-health/
HRC Releases Annual Healthcare Equality Index. (2018, March 27). HRC. https://www.hrc.org/news/hrc-releases-2018-healthcare-equality-index-honors-record-facilities-for
Transgender Health. (n.d.). NYU Langone Health. https://nyulangone.org/locations/transgender-health
