DE&I Guide Development of More Equitable Digital Health Products

As part of the inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Internship at CDHI, we created a guiding framework rooted in DE&I that prioritized achieving health equity through digital products and services as part of a holistic care experience. The framework consists of resources and toolkits applicable across the product development lifecycle and focuses on building digital health products for historically excluded populations and the many communities served by UCSF.

For the first phase of our project, we collaborated with Digital Patient Experience (DPE) teams and stakeholders from UCSF to establish a set of core principles that align with UCSF’s mission and values. These serve as a guide to better inform practices and to help toward achieving health equity in our work.

Next, we researched, reviewed, and identified existing gaps and assets in equity evaluations specific to product development, both within the organization and at similar health systems and technology companies. We narrowed down key equity-related variables (i.e. race & ethnicity, financial class group, preferred language) and social factors where known health disparities exist. By adapting and applying existing equity assessment practices defined by UCSF’s Department of Quality and Safety’s Equity Integration Taskforce, we created a draft Health Equity Dashboard to better inform teams of their success in promoting health equity through their digital products.

In the next few weeks, an initial version of the Health Equity Dashboard specific to Open Scheduling, a Seeking Care Initiative, will be tested. The feedback and results obtained will be used to iterate and adapt the dashboard, ensuring its compatibility across multiple products. We will also begin work with the design team at CDHI to further develop and standardize human-centered design research practices which prioritize DE&I core principles to ensure inclusivity within the user research process.

Stay tuned for future updates on our DE&I projects.