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What happens when a healthcare process technically works—but the person inside of it can’t?
In this episode of Empathy by Design, I’m joined by Katie Kurtz, creator of the TRUST framework, to break down a real-world healthcare case study through two lenses: Somatic UX and trauma-informed systems design. Pasted text
The case centers on a 14-year-old autistic, Spanish-speaking patient who was expected to complete a standard mental-health wellness assessment. The process assumed language comprehension, emotional identification, cognitive capacity, and a particular way of communicating. When those assumptions didn’t match the person in front of the system, the assessment broke down—and so did access to care. Pasted text
Katie and I walk through the case step by step, looking at orientation, trust, nervous-system capacity, communication, accessibility, choice, agency, and the hidden demands created by seemingly ordinary healthcare processes. We also explore what could have changed the outcome: interpretation support, visual communication, simplified language, caregiver choice, adaptable assessments, and better preparation for the actual range of humans who enter healthcare systems. Pasted text Pasted text
Because this isn’t just about making patients more comfortable. When design fails the human, everybody loses: the patient may not receive care, staff inherit additional stress, the organization loses meaningful data, and trust in the healthcare system can rupture. Small design changes can alter that entire trajectory. Pasted text
The question at the center of this case study:
What changes when we stop asking why a person couldn’t complete the process—and start asking what their response tells us about the process itself?
