Relief for Dallas Health & Human Services Dept.
Overview
I conducted seven research protocols for Dallas County Health and Human Services (HHS)
I researched, collaborated, and presented patient experiences from the Refugee Health Services Clinic to Dallas County team for an optimized patient workflow.
My Roles
UX Researcher/Designer and Project Manager
Partners
Dallas County - Refugee Health Services, International Rescue Committee
Topics
Healthcare, Service Design, Social Work and Customer Experience
The Challenge
2 of the 10
largest refugee health services clinics in the United States are located in Texas.
Dallas County HHS Records, 2024
~9,600 patients
are seen yearly at the Dallas County Refugee Health Services clinic.
Dallas County, 2024 estimate
Refugees arrive into a dense, fragmented network of clinics, caseworkers, and localized community organizations. The gap isn't effort — it’s coordination.
I needed to gauge the existing services provided by HHS and external partners in the process of resettling families
The Process
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Background Research
Research on public health and current resources offered to partners and more
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Surveys & Interviews
Research guides for the partners to engage and serve patients
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Workshop & Market Research
I engaged stakeholders in research to gauge pain-points and gaps in services
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Prototype & Next Steps
I developed a set of recommendations for the county and how to scale the product
Background Research
I empathized with patients to understand their needs in the medical resettlement process
To provide a specific boundary of focus, I used three of the seven components of whole health for refugees and their resettlement needs in DFW to best frame my scope/impact
My initial research of mapping the support network(s) came from the following two focus areas
Lived Experiences of Health Experts
I interviewed the following medical staff in Dallas County Refugee Health Services Clinic:
2 Clinic Managers
4 Registered Nurses
1 Reception Staff
1 Community Health Assistant
Local Patient Needs
Structured evaluation of patient needs was reviewed by an observation of:
Health Systems in DFW
Resettlement Services
Issues With Medical Visits
Family Onboarding Process - A supportive perspective
Providing care to a newly arrived family is a legal and medical process, the screening, arrival and resettlement are all a part of showing attention, respect, and care for refugees traveling from home to home
Surveys and Interviews
I coached 3 HHS medical staff on design research, data collection methods, and reporting for an ideal outcome.
Via observation of current appointment scheduling, patient use of transit systems, medical resettlement services, and observing health visits by refugees I understood the scale of issues and what limitations each internal team had.
Before partners took on solo research I completed 8+ hours of interviews with HHS, other clinics, case workers, and case managers to gain insight on the two major system issues
The two research protocols shared by myself and the HHS team resulted in the following three insights
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I sought to test out the following topics via this experiment
Patient Communication Gauge
Modality and Messaging
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This interview sought out to explain the following:
Patient Appt. Scheduling Process
Scheduling Modality and Effectiveness
Appointment Preference
Patients preferred full family-oriented medical services over multiple individual visits with clinicians
Insight derived from +3 hours of interviews with clinic managers
System-wide
Personal Care
Refugees felt like some of the resettlement programs were rushed or impersonal outside of the HHS services
Insight derived from 4 patient interviews at the HHS clinic
Accessibility of Medical Services
Refugees had inconsistent awareness of resettlement services provided inside and outside of HHS clinic
Insight derived from +6 HHS staff and patient interviews
International Medical Triage
Planning Resettlement Services
Research Protocols
After +18 hours of interviewing caseworkers, clinic managers, and +45 new/current patients I found the need to host a workshop.
Workshop and Market Research
I helped non-profits, clinics, school districts, and other community members align services
Learning about federal and state updates during the Quarterly Refugee resource planning meeting I was able to further understand the strategic priorities of non-profits, clinics, school districts and other community members
Overall Workshop Goals: How could I bring value to members from each organization and connect ideas to encourage collaboration?
Community Resources
Supporting clients, care networks, and caseworkers in the DFW area with a single platform
Resource Portal — unified resources, providers, and more
Communication — Simple and consistent area of information
Personas from Workshop and Prior Research
Partners in Progress
Unify Visions
Align perspectives and goals of resettlement agencies, non-profits, school districts, and medical organizations
Align Missions
Reinforce, and establish new collaborations to support common goals in resettlement
Map Organizations
Map existing roles people and orgs take on when establishing new arrivals into the DFW community
I felt the need to come up with a blue sky idea that would serve both resettled clients and the caseworkers in the resettlement process.
Resettlement
Process
Caseworker/patient tasks and procedures were expanded to include additional teams
Medical Needs — appointments, records, and follow-ups
Educational Steps — speaking to the impact of each process
Key Insight:
Caseworkers were the most critical to providing quality social, medical, and career engagement for refugees and families.
After reviewing participant data, public health research, and seeing previously established project information I was able to uncover three common themes.
Prioritizing Caseworkers
The caseworkers were established as critical people to access quality medical services and engagement
Caretaking — serves others via community, housing, and more
Way finding — helping in the navigation of unfamiliar systems
Mariana — Resettled Client
Newly arrived, navigating unfamiliar systems with her children
Medical needs — appointments, records, follow-ups across providers
Social needs — community, family security, language access, and emotional support
Relocation needs — housing, transportation, orientation/familiarity with her new city
Wireframes for caseworker mobile Relief training module
Ariel — Resettlement Caseworker
Managing a high-volume caseload across multiple agencies
Internal Documentation — intake, updates, and managing secure records
External organizations — coordinating across clinics, NGOs, and county services
Mass monthly caseload — staying on top of dozens of active client needs at once
Workshop Output - Refugee EMR Platform
Wireframe for refugee home page and NGO public profile
Developing a multi-sided (provider, caseworker, and patient) platform would be ideal for an optimized hand off of services, information, documentation, and identifiable gaps in services between NGOs and health systems in the resettlement process
Caseworker Onboarding - A training perspective
A single unified platform that manages medical records, trainings, and community resources, in a single tool designed to alleviate the load for medical providers, caseworkers and new arrivals to DFW.
Prototype and Next Steps
A go to market strategy was made for Relief, the training app created to improve the resettlement experience
Three currently interested markets for a five year implementation of a customized EMR services implementation
Re-establishing caseworker training into a centralized platform gives organizations increased engagement and visibility with each respective teammate in the process
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Care Network Engagement
Client, Provider, and Caseworker Portals
Medical and Support Onboarding for refugees/resettled populations
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Connect to Local:
Schools - Testing benchmarks and school year attendance records/requirements of new students
Clinics - Appointment scheduling and timely arrivals of patients and new/previous medical records
Communities - Ease of management, retention, and success of caseworkers/respective caseload
Use Case Validation
95% positive reviews were given during the walkthrough with 2 caseworkers and a medical provider in the HHS team.
Product Monetization
$1.78M Available with 3 of 4 workshop participants
with a 1% ask from tech budget
Research data, established competitors, resettlement KPIs, and feedback from the workshop influenced the GTM strategy for Relief.
Relief as a concept would have been unrealistic at the time, DHHS staff were instructed to take the research outcomes and develop video training modules on for their partners using existing tools.
What I learned
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Building a vision of research and collective mission is immeasurable in invaluable for teams that are new to design strategy
Leadership and Support
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Group research should prioritize consistency, team feedback, and the ability to iterate on relevant data gathering tools/structure
Data Capture Tools
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Brining together external partners always requires extra time, planning, and a shared value proposition to ensure participation
Partner Engagement
Other Projects
