Whenever we conduct user research in health care, the same pain points consistently emerge. The experience tends to be overwhelming, confusing, frustrating, and stressful. This is because it’s hard to understand, and the process of getting care is often inefficient — health care has usability issues. 

Ideally, people want to feel in control. They desire health care that is straightforward and easy to understand, and want this care to be delivered through a convenient process. 

This presentation will share learnings of how patients define the ideal health care experience and focus on a user-driven definition of health care usability.  

Attendees will learn how: 

• Patients define the ideal health care experience, and
• To focus on a user-driven definition of health care usability.

In 2022, Advance Equity became the first pillar of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Strategic Plan. This strategy aims to advance health equity by addressing the health disparities that underlie our health system. This is accomplished through stakeholder engagement and incorporating the Advance Equity pillar into the core functions of CMS. SDH  is one of the key aspects that aligns with the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment in this area. A strong body of evidence demonstrates that addressing SDH within health care systems advances outcomes such as cancer treatment adherence. To achieve this, we need to collect SDH data, however, the traditional approach is not the most effective. This session will share how an HCD approach can help Health Equity and SDH based on an NIH SBIR awarded project. 

 Attendees will learn:

• What SDH is, and
• How a Human-Centered Design approach can improve both Health Equity and SDH. 

Disasters such as wildfires and heat waves have well-understood health consequences. Historically, the U.S. has defined “quality care” during and after disasters as fast response. However, climate changes are turning previously uncommon events, such as massive wildfires, into annual tragedies.  

Attendees will learn: 

• The immediate and residual impacts of natural disasters caused by climate change on communities and healthcare systems,
• What providers and health networks do when wildfire season joins flu season as a routine hazard for people with asthma and/or diabetes, and
• How Medicare can reimagine the services and models they provide to better serve their population.

Humans have 204 bones and 360 joints that work together following two basic methods of movement. Understanding how and why the body moves is critical to creating effective tools. The connections between the nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, and our world can be used to effectively introduce new tools that make life easier and more comfortable for the community.

During this session, we'll discuss how a holistic approach to patient care led to the evolution of a tool to monitor joint motion and how data acquisition impacts our ability to move comfortably. 

Attendees will: 

• Learn about the DO's preventive, "whole person" approach to illness and how mind-body-spirit considerations are important considerations during treatment.
• Discover how normal humans work from a biomechanical perspective, and 
• Understanding how the connection between human behavior, the nervous system, and the musculoskeletal system led to an innovative health care solution. 

This panel will include four 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. 

Join us as we discuss 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 will: 

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

Communication is hard. Communicating health information to diverse audiences with low health literacy is particularly hard—and has high stakes. 
Plain language makes information easy to find, use, and understand for everyone—and makes healthcare systems more effective because patients understand what they need to do to manage their health. So, the question we must ask ourselves is, "Do people get what we're saying?" 

Attendees will learn: 

• The importance of knowing their audience well enough to communicate effectively, 
• How to create content that is easy to scan, read, and understand, and
• How to use words that are meaningful to their audience. 

The KindnessRX campaign studied the power of human kindness to combat caregiver burnout and increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake.  Highlighting those who made an impact within their organization, the campaign took aim at a softer approach towards vaccination promotion, avoiding words such as “mandatory” and “required.” Rather, the campaign focused on gratitude, kindness and taking care of one another. Comments and feedback proved that human kindness generated a positive culture change, expressing gratitude and kindness that helped healthcare workers build personal connections while promoting safety and workforce engagement.

Attendees will learn how:

• The power of human kindness outweighs monetary benefit, and
• The KindnessRX campaign helped increase COVID-19 vaccination rates.

Many of those who receive health coverage from CMS are some of the most socioeconomically vulnerable populations in the United States. Their right to high quality healthcare is heavily reliant on the ability of CMS and associated healthcare workers to provide effective support for its program beneficiaries and health providers. Ventera provides innovative solutions to continuously improve this support system by centering user feedback in its product development and improvement processes.

Join us to learn about two custom designed and developed CMS products: HCQIS Access Roles and Profile (HARP) and Program Resource System (PRS 2.0). This case study highlights the importance of incorporating human-centered research and design throughout the entire lifecycle of product development. 

Attendees will understand how: 

• Continual user research with stakeholder/end-user participation in the product development lifecycle leads to relevant and timely user experience (UX) design and increased user investment towards product success,
• Flexibly shifting between having a leadership mindset and a team player mindset in a cross-functional team is key, and
• From creating a minimum viable product to adding value to an MVP, the focus of UX research often changes, but the human-centered approach does not end when each project milestone is reached.

Executive Order 14028 requires federal civilian agencies to establish plans to drive the adoption of Zero Trust Architecture. But what is Zero Trust and what does it mean to be fully compliant? This session will explore what Zero Trust really means and its potential implications for customer experience in health care settings. 

Attendees will learn about: 

• Zero Trust compliance, and 
• The potential implications for customer experience in health care settings.