Andrea Araujo-Ferrer MD Candidate - Intro to Human Centered Design, Mentorship Guest Speaker

Andrea Araujo-Ferrer, or Dr. Dre, is an MD candidate currently studying at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She also worked with UCSF's The Better Lab and focused her projects through the lens of Human Centered Design.

Human Centered Design is an innovative approach to tackling problems; it is one that begins by focusing on the individual being affected by the problem and ending with a solution that is tailored specifically to benefit those groups. Dr. Dre taught us about the foundational knowledge that makes up the Human Centered Design approach, and then spoke about instances where she applied that to real-world projects. From there she coached us on how we could implement Human Centered Design into AccessiHealth.

As a result of this meeting, the team and I decided to condense the ideas we had brainstormed and developed a list of questions both in English and in Spanish. These questions were tailored towards the broad audience of individuals who had negative experiences with their medical practitioners, or who had negative experiences caring for themselves or others from home.

Upon gathering our interview responses from nearly 90 individuals ranging from ages 7-78, we synthesized our evidence and continued to breakdown how exactly we could use that information to influence the development of our app. One common thread that rang true over the general spectrum of interview responses was that individuals felt there was a gap in between the patient and doctor. The responses indicated that when caring for themselves or a loved one from home, they oftentimes weren't sure whether or not their situation was urgent enough to go to the hospital or forgot aspects of how they had been feeling in those difficult moments once they finally got to see a doctor.

With the knowledge we gained from this mentorship guest speaker session with Dr. Dre, along with the implementation of the interviewee's responses and ideas, I am confident that the team and I are on our way to developing an app that will positively contribute to the betterment of healthcare experiences for many individuals.