Inclusive Healthcare Assessment

Framework & Tool Design

Accessibility Month Talk

May 2025

I created a framework and interactive assessment tool to help product teams spot and remove barriers in healthcare products. Presented to the organization during Global Accessibility Awareness Month, it gives teams a structured way to evaluate whether what they're building truly reaches everyone.

The Problem

Health is a basic human right, but not everyone has the same opportunity to live a healthy life. Standard product reviews focus on usability and functionality, but they rarely ask whether the experience works for someone with limited tech access, low health literacy, or cultural barriers to care. I kept hearing stories about patients falling through the cracks, and I wanted to give teams a practical way to catch those gaps before they ship.

The Framework

The assessment mirrors the patient journey, asking teams to evaluate their product at each stage. It covers 15 evaluation questions across four areas, each grounded in real patterns I saw across healthcare products.

Accessing Care

Can patients actually get to care? Covers digital access barriers, scheduling friction, financial obstacles, and service navigation. If someone can't find or reach the front door, nothing else matters.

Understanding & Safety

Can patients understand and use their care safely? Looks at health literacy, whether care plans make sense, medication instructions, and data privacy. If the language is complex or the instructions are confusing, people are left guessing.

Care Coordination

Do the pieces of care connect? Looks at provider alignment, information sharing across systems, and caregiver involvement. When records are siloed or families are locked out, patients get stuck in the middle.

Inclusion & Trust

Does everyone feel seen? Looks at equitable care quality, cultural responsiveness, emotional impact, and whether patients trust their providers. If someone doesn't feel heard, they stop coming back.

The Tool

The framework lives as an interactive assessment that teams use together. You walk through your product asking each evaluation question, check the ones that surface potential barriers, then rate likelihood and severity to prioritize what to fix first. It exports a PDF so findings turn into actionable tasks.

Designed to be used early in the design process with 2-3 people from different perspectives, for about an hour. Different viewpoints lead to better coverage.

Process & Reflections

How I built it

I was inspired by Vanquis Bank's Inclusive Thinking Audit Template for financial services. Their approach was a multi-step workshop. I simplified it into a single scorecard format, translated the evaluation criteria from finance to healthcare, and used AI to build it as a standalone web tool that anyone could use without Figma or a facilitator. I reviewed the final framework with our clinical leadership team to make sure it covered the right ground.

How it spread

I presented the framework during Global Accessibility Awareness Month to the broader organization. The talk used real patient scenarios to make the barriers feel real, then showed how the tool works. The presentation landed well, but without a central place to host it or leadership backing to make it part of the process, no one ended up using the tool.

What I'd do next

I'd want to make the tool easier to find and easier to use. Host it somewhere central so teams don't need a local file, connect it to Jira so flagged barriers turn into tickets without extra steps, and add AI that can pre-fill evaluations from uploaded flows. That way teams start by reviewing and editing, not staring at a blank page.