Interview & survey

In the interviews, we collected the opinions from therapists, clinicians, NYU Langone staff, and transgender patients. There are some intersections of them, such as gender-expansive people tend to have a strong reliance on the online community. And both the patient and NYU Langone staff mentioned that there is no well-organized feedback system.

Using Google Forms, we sent out a survey, shown below:

We asked questions to gauge the age group, gender identity, experiences with healthcare, and information sources from the gender expansive community. We aimed to keep it short, to encourage people to complete the form. If they were comfortable, we asked for contact information.

Here are the findings from our survey:

Bias & Discrimination

Gender expansive people are worried about the bias and non-acknowledgment from Healthcare providers may impact the quality of care they received

Stigma:

They are also afraid of harmful reactions from others by disclosing themselves

Gender Affirmation: 

the pre-assumption of pronouns and gender identity also makes them feel uncomfortable.

Insights

Based on our research, surveys, and interviews, we organized this structure at the right hand.

The discrimination from society increases the perceived stigma of gender-expansive people also influences the healthcare providers. Discrimination from healthcare providers might lead transgender people to choose not to seek healthcare when needed. Furthermore, lack of access to medically necessary care is associated with depression and suicidality. To relieve the stress from that, gender-expansive individuals may turn to drugs or alcohol. And that may back to influence the bias from the society and make it a loop.

Thus, we are going to focus on the lack of trust. Because of the unequal power dynamic between patients and providers

We were trying to come up with ideas to deal with the lack of resources from the medical system and the problem that transgender people are not empowered to speak up. Also, cultivate the sense of the community.

Our Feedback System Prototypes

Patient Survey

Patient sees a QR code on a poster in the hospital. They can scan to access a survey. The user can fill out the survey on their mobile phone. Alternatively, a patient can access the survey in a followup email at home. If a patient prefers a physical form, they can locate a drop off box which prints out a survey with a unique barcode. When a patient fills out the form and places it in the drop off slit, the form is automatically scanned into the Zendesk system.

Internal Ticket View

Members of the LGBTQ+ Patient Relations Team can see all the surveys in one place. Here’s a single ticket view. The Patient Relations Team can see the subject and contact information of the patient, along with the physician in question. Within the single ticket view, the Patient Relations Team can respond to the patient.

Administration View

The administration can view specific complaints about all healthcare providers in the system. Here’s an example of a poorly performing doctor. Here’s a high performing doctor. They’ve earned a Highly Inclusive badge which will be shared to the community on the public facing dashboard.

Public Facing Website

To maintain privacy of all physicians at Langone, we decided only to highlight well reviewed physicians, so the gender expansive community can select the best provider for their needs. The website will show all the top rated healthcare providers, using ratings collected from patient surveys. This brings the data back to the community. Finally, a patient looking for a provider at Langone can see details of each physician, including Highly Inclusive badges, patient ratings, and testimonials.