A community-based awareness campaign for a brand new Lung Cancer Screening mobile unit by Cedars-Sinai, combining traditional printed campaign with blue-sky UX technologies.
14 weeks, Jan - Apr 2024 (Sponsored Studio)
SoCal residents who have a history of smoking at least 20 packs a year and are between 50-80 years old.
(Qualification to get a Lung Cancer Screening according to USPSTF)
Those who belong to underserved communities, specifically Latinx, African American, LGBTQ+ and Korean populations.
During the 14-week sponsored studio I was in charge of UX Research, team project management, research synthesis and concept development. I also created prototype mockups for an app-based screening scheduling system as well as collaborated on the overall campaign visual direction.
“Isaac is not only a very talented Interaction Designer he is articulate, collaborative, personable and a natural leader.”
- JonDelina Buckley, Instructor @ ArtCenter College of Design
There are many barriers acting against potential patients for Lung Cancer Screening along the user journey, including social, economic, and cultural barriers unique to underserved communities. These include fears and apprehension caused by past medical trauma, lack of health literacy, and language hurdles.
“Through this campaign we would love to raise overall Lung Cancer Screening Rates by at least 10%, and also build a higher patient retention rate with yearly screenings.” - Cedars-Sinai
The overall goal was to represent authentic experiences through research-supported design. Design proposals were built primarily on research synthesis to learn the nuances of how lung cancer affects our target audience. Synthesis and strategy included affinity mapping of collected secondary research, expert interviews, and creation of a current state service blueprint to establish the opportunities for design intervention.
These are the aims of this project overall:
To understand the mechanisms behind communication between healthcare provider and patient, such as trust, language, and literacy.
To explore how recent technological changes in care for healthcare providers might provide new opportunities for messaging.
To understand what the Lung Cancer Screening process entails, including various statistics, risk factors & eligibility requirements.
To understand the barriers and pain points experienced by Underserved Communities in Los Angeles with regards to Lung Cancer Screening.
To develop a strong advocacy campaign informed by research to increase Lung Cancer Screening rates and health literacy.
The service blueprint below describes the current pathway that a potential patient typically goes through for Lung Cancer Screening. A common problem is that due to numerous points of friction, patient drop off is very frequent and many people do not see the Lung Cancer Screening process through. Another important note is that this process also occurs yearly, a fact that many people also tend to forget. There therefore are many opportunities for design intervention where the campaign and mobile unit can help increase retention rates and therefore screening rates.
The process in 4 steps:
Research > Synthesis > Opportunities > User Archetype Formation
Increasing Healthcare Literacy through an Educational Component
Education boosting activities as well as periodic health checks were the most effective at curbing tobacco use according to research. Increasing healthcare literacy must remain an essential goal in our campaign concept.
Building Trust through Family and Community
Family and community is a commonly held value among many non-native groups living in the United States. These include but are not limited to Hispanic, Asian American, African American, and Black Caribbean populations located in lower socio-economic areas of Los Angeles. Maintaining family narrative is therefore an important aspect to helping build trust through the campaign.
Increasing Screening Rates and Retentions through Visibility
Using testimonials and community representation in the campaign, the goal is to empower people and increase Lung Cancer Screening rates.
Research
User behaviors were first observed and documented. Through affinity mapping, trends and behavioral groups were found.
Smokers are proportionally more represented in the lower socio-economic strata of society, leading to higher occurrences of lung cancer. Many people from underserved communities do not have the practice of regular visits to Primary Care Physician (PCP) due to cultural upbringing, monetary concerns, geospatial concerns, or past trauma.
Synthesis
Once behavior groups were formed, pain points were investigated as well as the correlations across groups.
Patient Pain Points
Lack of health literacy
Limited time
Poor informatics
Fatalistic perceptions
Fears of the unknown
Distrust in the US healthcare system
Language barriers for ESL patients
Healthcare Professional Pain Points
High rate of patient drop off along the lung cancer screening process
Low healthcare literacy among underserved populations
Low patient retention rate due to lack of knowledge lung cancer screening is a yearly procedure
Patients inaccurately describe personal health history due to lack of trust, language barriers, fear of judgement, taboo topic, or lack of memory
Opportunities
Upon looking at both affinity map and current state service blueprint, design opportunities were identified where we could perform intervention with the campaign.
Build awareness and increase community visibility
Increase healthcare literacy among general public through education
Create conversation starters in PCP offices
Feature voices from community leaders to challenge cancer taboos
User Archetype Formation
Synthesizing all of the research, we distilled down to two key user archetypes to focus our project around - The Community Hero, and The Healthcare Hero. Each archetype may have further subsets as detailed below.
Community Hero: Spiritual Leader (Religion / Belief)
The community leader respected by many, dedicated to uplifting people through faith, spirituality and support. This Screening Hero plays an important role in encouraging those who feel vulnerable and need strength.
Community Hero: Peers (Same aged friends)
The friend, the peer, the neighbor, the everyday community member. This Screening Hero normalizes lung cancer screening through shared experiences and word-of-mouth. This is the everyday voice.
Community Hero: Family Member (Biological & Found)
The people at home who provide emotional support, encouragement, and solace. This Screening Hero advocates for the patient’s health and play a foundational role in long term emotional support.
Healthcare Hero: Informative Doctor (PCP / Radiologist)
The subject matter expert on lung cancer screening. This Screening Hero provides education and transparency about the lung cancer screening the process.
Healthcare Hero: Attentive Caregiver (Nurse / Technologists)
The navigator and caregiver in lung cancer screening. This Screening Hero provides comforting support inside a healthcare sphere and answers more emotional needs.
Individually, I designed the Companion App as well as Voice User Interface as UX components to support the campaign and the launch of the mobile screening unit.
As a team, we created Screening Heroes as a campaign focusing on uplifting the voices of experienced community members and healthcare providers in lung cancer screening, to encourage conversation, destigmatization, and increased screening rates within these communities.
Companion App
This app is tailored to the user to help reduce likelihood of patient fall-off during the entire lung cancer screening process. The app also reinforces the fact that lung cancer screening is an annual event once started, and will help act as a handy navigator to help guide people through an otherwise complex system.
Key functions include:
Viewing upcoming appointments
Mobile screening unit location tracker
Automatic appointment scheduler
On-board voice assistant (VUI)
Education resources
Voice User Interface (VUI)
The Voice User Interface is a virtual assistant to help the needs of patients at a moment’s notice. The public facing VUI at kiosks cover only general information, while the companion app VUI will cover more patient specific concerns with patient consent (HIIPA compliance).
The VUI acts as a neutral party between the healthcare world and patient community. A neutral party such as a voice AI can relieve the patient of the feeling of human judgement and help them feel more at ease. It can also lower barriers by converting jargon into plain language for elders to understand while still remaining objective and honest.
Spearheading this project gave me invaluable experience in working under a healthcare context, where there are unique nuances and considerations when working with sensitive populations.
There is a great importance of community-participation in designing with and for sensitive populations. A community-led and centered design process aims to help researchers like myself gain ground in learning and understanding to unpack users' needs, values, and motivations. Continuous conversations with community members helped us build a more effective strategy for the campaign, centering empowerment and encouragement and design with care.
