UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research, UC Davis School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States.
Technology Services Unit, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
JMIR Hum Factors. 2024 Aug 16;11:e53939. doi: 10.2196/53939.
Connecting individuals to existing community resources is critical to addressing social needs and improving population health. While there is much ongoing informatics work embedding social needs screening and referrals into health care systems and their electronic health records, there has been less focus on the digital ecosystem and needs of community-based organizations (CBOs) providing or connecting individuals to these resources.
We used human-centered design to develop a digital platform for CBOs, focused on identification of health and social resources and communication with their clients.
Centered in the Develop phase of the design process, we conducted in-depth interviews in 2 phases with community-based organizational leadership and staff to create and iterate on the platform. We elicited and mapped participant feedback to theory-informed domains from the Technology Acceptance Model, such as Usefulness and Ease of Use, to build the final product and summarized all major design decisions as the platform development proceeded.
Overall, we completed 22 interviews with 18 community-based organizational leadership and staff in 2 consecutive Develop phases. After coding of the interview transcripts, there were 4 major themes related to usability, relevance, and external factors impacting use. Specifically, CBOs expressed an interest in a customer relationship management software to manage their client interactions and communications, and they needed specific additional features to address the scope of their everyday work, namely (1) digital and SMS text messaging communication with clients and (2) easy ways to identify relevant community resources based on diverse client needs and various program eligibility criteria. Finally, clear implementation needs emerged, such as digital training and support for staff using new platforms. The final platform, titled "Mapping to Enhance the Vitality of Engaged Neighborhoods (MAVEN)," was completed in the Salesforce environment in 2022, and it included features and functions directly mapped to the design process.
Engaging community organizations in user-centered design of a health and social resource platform was essential to tapping into their deep expertise in serving local communities and neighborhoods. Design methods informed by behavioral theory can be similarly employed in other informatics research. Moving forward, much more work will be necessary to support the implementation of platforms specific to CBOs' needs, especially given the resources, training, and customization needed in these settings.
将个人与现有的社区资源联系起来对于满足社会需求和改善人口健康至关重要。虽然当前有大量的信息学工作将社会需求筛查和转介嵌入医疗保健系统及其电子健康记录中，但对于数字生态系统以及提供或连接个人与这些资源的社区组织（CBO）的需求关注较少。
我们使用以人为中心的设计方法为 CBO 开发了一个数字平台，该平台专注于识别健康和社会资源，并与客户进行沟通。
以设计过程的“开发”阶段为中心，我们与社区组织的领导层和员工进行了 2 个阶段的深入访谈，以创建和迭代平台。我们从技术接受模型中引出并映射了参与者反馈到理论驱动的领域，例如有用性和易用性，以构建最终产品，并在平台开发过程中总结了所有主要设计决策。
总体而言，我们在连续的 2 个“开发”阶段中完成了对 18 名社区组织的领导层和员工的 22 次访谈。对访谈记录进行编码后，有 4 个与可用性、相关性和影响使用的外部因素相关的主要主题。具体而言，CBO 表示有兴趣使用客户关系管理软件来管理客户互动和沟通，并且他们需要特定的附加功能来解决其日常工作的范围，即（1）与客户进行数字和短信文本消息通信，以及（2）根据客户的不同需求和各种计划资格标准，轻松识别相关社区资源的方法。最后，出现了明确的实施需求，例如为使用新平台的员工提供数字培训和支持。最终平台名为“Mapping to Enhance the Vitality of Engaged Neighborhoods (MAVEN)”，于 2022 年在 Salesforce 环境中完成，其中包含了直接映射到设计过程的功能和特性。
让社区组织参与以用户为中心的健康和社会资源平台设计对于利用他们在服务当地社区和邻里方面的深厚专业知识至关重要。基于行为理论的设计方法也可以类似地应用于其他信息学研究。展望未来，需要做更多的工作来支持满足 CBO 需求的平台的实施，特别是考虑到这些环境中所需的资源、培训和定制。
