Digital Healthcare for All: Designing Equitable Access in Africa

Rethinking Head & Neck Prophylactic Care: A UX Perspective

Community Health Network is a neighbor-serving healthcare system working to provide accessible and comprehensive care to the communities we call home, carrying forward a 60-year legacy of neighbor-driven service.

My Role: UX Researcher, Data Analyst Speech Language Pathologist (SLP)

Stakeholders: UX Designer, Director of Rehabilitation, Medical Oncology, Infection Control, Radiation Oncology, RN Oncology Navigator, CEO, EPIC Development Team

Challenge: To deeply understand the lived experiences of HNC patients and identify friction points in their care journey both from a clinical and operational perspective. The goal was to co-design care pathways that reduced hospitalization rates, improved quality of life, and aligned with system-wide priorities and holistic, equitable care.

Tools and Methods:

User Interviews (Zoom)
SQL (EPIC clinical data extraction)
Python (Pandas, NumPy for data cleaning and cohort analysis)
Qualtrics
Validated Clinical Assessment Instruments

Duration: 14 months

Expanding Access to Preventative Care for Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) Patients

Patients with HNC face high risks of swallowing and nutritional complications—but access to timely, preventative care is fragmented and often inequitable, especially in rural areas. Our average patient traveled 52 minutes one-way for care—often too late.

We need to understand: Where are patients falling through the cracks? What patterns are tried to avoidable hospitalizations? How can we build trust and access upstream?

Credits

As the lead UX Researcher on this initiative, I:

Conducted secondary research on HNC care standards, clinical evidence, and early intervention strategies..
Led stakeholder interviews with cross-disciplinary teams to map current workflows and identify gaps in care delivery.
Facilitated semi-structured user interviews to surface patient behaviors, barriers, and emotional pain points across the care journey.
Created patient journey maps and personas to guide program design, emphasizing equity, early assess, and usability.
Design and ran usability testing sessions for appointment scheduling tools, Telehealth platforms, and patient education materials.
Administration and analyzed validated clinical assessments (pre- and post- treatment) to quantify therapeutic progress.
Synthesized qualitative themes and layered in EPIC-based analytics (via SQL and Python) to triangulate between patient narratives, clinical data, and system trends.

Informed Design: Insights from Secondary Research on Head and Neck Cancer Care

To ground our design decisions in evidence and empathy, I conducted in-depth secondary research exploring:

clinical best practices in prophylactic care for HNC
access barriers in rural healthcare ecosystems
patient experiences with long-distance travel for treatment
application of validated clinical assessments in early intervention

This foundational research revealed critical gaps in care, including limited access to specialists, friction in appointment scheduling, and reduced healthcare literacy among at-risk populations. These findings informed both the questions we asked in primary research and the design decisions that followed.

Our final approach prioritized accessibility from every angle—streamlined scheduling flows, simplified interfaces, and integration with familiar tools—to reduce cognitive and logistical load for patients navigating complex care journeys.

Stakeholder Perspectives: Informing Head and Neck Cancer Care at Community Health Network

To understand the systemic challenges of Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) care system at Community Health Network, I conducted in-depth interviews with cross-functional stakeholders. These interviews included oncologists, nurses, administrative staff, patient advocates, and other individuals involved in delivering and supporting patient care.

The conversations mapped clinical workflows, unearthed pain points in patient support systems, and clarified organizational priorities around early intervention and holistic care delivery.

One of the most critical insights was the impact of siloed departments and limited inter-team visibility, which often left patients struggling to navigate their care independently. Stakeholders consistently emphasized the urgent need for stronger patient navigation support, streamlined communication pathways, and clearer ownership across transition points in the care journey.

These insights directly shaped our design goals, reinforcing the need for intuitive tools, cross-role visibility, and a system that feels connected to patients and to itself.

Patient Journeys: Designing with—and for—Those Living It

To capture the lived realities of patients with HNC, we facilitated collaborative journey mapping workshops with patients and caregivers. These sessions illuminated the barriers patients encounter when seeking prophylactic care, particularly those traveling long distances from rural areas.

The journey maps revealed a dual burden: significant time and financial costs associated with repeated travel, and a limited understanding of how early intervention impacts long-term swallowing function and post-treatment quality of life. Many patients were unaware of the value of prophylactic care, resulting in reduced adherence and, potentially, increased hospitalization risk.

These findings directly informed our design recommendations:

implement a streamlined referral process to reduce confusion and intervention delays
Establish a dedicated care coordination team to provide personalized, consistent guidance
Prioritize education that clearly communicates the value of early care and empowers patients to self-advocate with confidence.

By centering both patient stories and systemic data, we design with empathy and built for clarity, trust, and better outcomes.

Understanding Our Patients: Turning Voices into Personas

To capture the nuanced realities of HNC patients, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of individuals, including those in rural communities disproportionately affected by care access barriers.

These conversations uncovered layered challenges: the strain of long-distance travel for appointments, limited awareness of the importance of prophylactic treatment, and mixed comfort levels with telehealth as a care option. We listened not just for what patients said, but what they felt: uncertainty, fatigue, motivation, and resilience.

By mapping their needs, motivations, and frustrations, we developed user personas that reflected the full complexity of their experiences. These personas became a foundational design tool, guiding content, interface decisions, and care coordination flows to ensure the app was not just clinically useful, but personally meaningful.

Personas

Teresa Whitmore

Bio: A retired teacher from rural Indiana. Teresa drives nearly an hour each way for oncology care and relies on caregiver support and printed materials to navigate a complex medical journey.

Marcus Reyes

Bio: A long-haul truck driver managing his treatment on the road. Marcus is determined to stay on top of his care plan but need flexible, mobile-first tools that fit around an unpredictable work schedule.

Aisha Patel

Bio: Tech-savvy single mom and newly diagnosed patient. Aisha embraces Telehealth and digital tools but wants clear, jargon-free education to understand the long-term value of early intervention.

Rethinking Access: Usability Testing Across the Care Journey

To uncover pain points buried in routine workflows, we conducted moderated usability sessions with patients navigating appointment scheduling, telehealth interfaces, and education portals post-treatment.

Participants with speech and motor impairments surfaced navigation breakdowns and emotional stressors, often masked by silent workarounds. These insights reshaped design decisions—from reducing cognitive load on appointment screens to reconfiguring call-to-action buttons for screen-reader and assistive tech compatibility.

What emerged was a clearer, calmer digital path that helped patients schedule, show up, and stay informed on their own terms.

Measuring Progress That Patients Can Feel

Quantifying recovery required more than anecdotes. We embedded validated clinical assessments, like DIGEST (Dynamic Imaging Grade of Swallowing Toxicity) and MDADI (MD Anderson Dysphagia Inventory), into EPIC to capture real-time snapshots of physical and emotional well-being across milestones.

Pre- and post-treatment data revealed patterns: a steady reduction in severity of dysphagia, improved perception of quality of life, and improved well being scores, reinforcing the connection between therapeutic guidance and lived recovery. These metrics empowered clinicians with timely insights and gave patients tangible proof of progress in otherwise uncertain healing journeys.

MDADI.pdf

DIGEST

From Story to Strategy: Triangulating Patient Voice and Data

Beyond what patients said in interviews was what they did in the system, and sometimes, what wasn’t recorded at all. We mapped patient narratives onto back-end EPIC data, using SQL and R to surface behavioral trends, service gaps, and care delays.

This mixed-methods approach revealed a timing disconnect between therapy need and scheduling availability. Missed windows that prolonged recovery. Visualizations in Tableau transformed static datasets into cross-disciplinary discussion starters.

By aligning emotional truths with system logic, we made the invisible visible—and change actionable.

Designing for Recovery, Not Just Resilience

This work wasn’t just about fixing broken workflows. It was about redefining what supportive care looks like for head and neck cancer patients navigating the long tail of treatment.

By integrating validated assessments, usability insights, and EPIC-based analytics, we created a system that not only felt better—but performed better. The updated scheduling logic and education pathways helped reduce hospital readmissions and cut inpatient days by 18%, as patients reported fewer complications and greater confidence in managing their recovery at home.

More importantly, this case taught us that data without empathy falls short. It was only through listening deeply to patient stories—and making space for their frustration, courage, and hope—that we could design solutions that honored the full human experience.

The lesson? When patients are truly heard, care becomes more timely, more personalized, and more healing.