Applications of Human-Centered Design to Create Inclusive Health Informatics Interventions

Title: Applications of Human-Centered Design to Create Inclusive Health Informatics Interventions
Speaker: Natalie Benda, Assistant Professor of Health Informatics (in Nursing)
Abstract: Inadequate consideration of user needs can lead to patient safety issues, poor data quality, and disuse of informatics interventions. Approaches that do not take into account the needs of diverse end users can also lead to a problem know as “intervention-generated inequity” such that a well-intended intervention works better for already advantaged groups. Human-centered, inclusive design approaches can support system usability, use, and equitable implementation. Dr. Benda will describe her program of research and provide illustrative examples as to how human-centered design may be utilized to create inclusive health informatics interventions.
Bio: Dr. Benda is an expert in human factors engineering and human centered design, which are scientific approaches that investigate how people acquire, use, and interpret information. Human factors experts leverage this understanding to build tools that support cognitive work in high-risk environments, such as healthcare. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Health Informatics at the Columbia University School of Nursing. She holds a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University at Buffalo and completed her postdoctoral training in Weill Cornell Medicine’s Division of Health Informatics, Department of Population Health Sciences with Dr. Jessica Ancker. Dr. Benda’s program of research uses human-centered design to advance the inclusivity and equity of healthcare, with a special focus consumer information technology. Dr. Benda currently has a R00 award from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to design an mHealth tool to support Black and Spanish-speaking Latina women in reporting and managing postpartum symptoms. She has additional projects in global maternal health (Myanmar/India), improving telemedicine for patients with limited English proficiency, and shared decision making for early detection of postpartum depression. She has nearly 50 publications in journals such as JAMIA, JAMA, and the American Journal of Public Health. Her work has been funded as a PI or Co-I by NIMHD, AHRQ, NSF, NIMH, NICHD, NLM, and PCORI.