Traverse

The Challenge

Existing healthcare in the U.S. excludes factors acknowledging a patient's many identities, negatively affecting care access, experiences, and outcomes. As a result, historically marginalized groups often live with poorer health outcomes:

  • Marginalized identities receive less quality care 

  • Diverse language speakers have less access to medical information 

  • Multicultural communities are unable to establish trust in providers  

In response, I helped Artefact envision Traverse, a digital system, to assist providers in delivering care that respects and integrates multicultural views and practices of health.

The Outcome

Traverse is an envisioning project developed by Artefact that leverages digital tools and technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to support culturally responsive patient-provider interactions across the primary care journey.  

It helps bridge the gap between providers steeped in biomedical systems and patients with increasingly diverse lifeworlds, so providers can address their patients’ whole identities and backgrounds, leading to better health outcomes.

View the Artefact case study →

My Role

UX/UI Designer

My role included research, wireframing & prototyping (focused on patient flows), storytelling & case study production. In addition, I co-authored a follow-up article on the need for cultural humility in healthcare.

The Team

1 Project Lead

2 Designers

1 Researcher

The Client

Artefact - internal marketing project

PROVOCATION

How might we improve healthcare access, experiences, and outcomes by delivering care that’s as unique as each patient?

Traverse

Bridging the health equity gap with care as unique as each patient.

Traverse is a digital system that supports patient-provider interactions across the primary care journey.

Cultural Data Wallet

The Traverse system is centered around a digital identity wallet that encrypts all sensitive personal, cultural, social, and familial data shared by patients, then stores it in a decentralized manner on blockchain technology.

Digital Patient Onboarding

A digital onboarding experience helps patients feel more confident and prepared for clinical encounters, avoiding uncomfortable surprises. The system allows patients to flag any concerns or preferences they have in advance and store the information in their data wallet for future use.

Consent to Data Collection

Data is collected throughout a patient’s journey, providing incremental exchanges of value for sharing information at the appropriate moment. This approach ensures patient data is portable across providers, accessed with explicit consent, and controlled directly by the patient.

Traverse’s Core Features

  • Cultural Data Wallet

    A digital identity wallet encrypts all sensitive personal, cultural, social, and familial data shared by patients and stores it in a decentralized manner on the blockchain, enabling personalized experiences as they move through care touchpoints.

  • Digital Patient Onboarding

    Details what to expect during clinical encounters, helping patients avoid uncomfortable surprises with providers, bringing familiarity and alleviating anxiety for patients who experience discomfort or mistrust in medical systems.

  • Dynamic Visit Support

    Providers can use AI-powered natural language processing that acts as a digital medical scribe in clinical interactions, to support better mutual understanding with patients by delivering in-the-moment tips, context, and resources. 

  • Continual Capacity Building

    Immediate feedback, between clinical visits, from AI-enabled conversations with patient, delivering actionable tips to make on-the-go adjustments based on communication factors such as agreeableness, compassion, and positivity.

  • Community Insights

    Care recommendations based on the suggestions of similar community members, non-medical interventions such as diet and lifestyle changes can be contextualized within a patient’s representative cultures and communities.

“This is really cool! I love the idea of that feed with different concepts coming up in discussion. There's easily consumable information that allows for reference in the moment. That goes a long way of changing the dynamic of ‘I don't understand what you're saying, so I'm going to ignore it’; which is important in the context of providers being burned out and it being hard to consume new information.”

— Family care physician working with immigrant and unhoused patients

See Traverse in Action!