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Digital Public Health at the Scale of Government: Little Nudges Result in Big Usability Ripples for the Public

Meaghan Hudak | Reading time: 4 minutes 

This panel included three designers from Digital Service at CMS, an organization that supports over 181 million people living in America in getting the health care (and insurance) they need. Ensuring that the design of our social safety nets include Human-Centered Design (HCD) at their core, this often means doing small but meaningful things that set up later work to be more equitable and sustainable. 

We discussed approaching government public health projects as a Digital Service team, working on cross-agency initiatives that increase access to mental health and/or substance use disorder treatment, advocating for HCD and trauma-informed user research with our partners, and creating the capacity within the government to include those with disabilities in our research.   

Attendees learned: 

• About the team's usability work within the behavioral health space, and 
• The panelists' experiences working within the government and supporting cross-agency and countrywide initiatives.