Description: Zablocki VA Women's Health PACT (Patient Aligned Care Team includes the MD's, NP, RN, LPN, social worker, PharmD and medical secretary) undertook a pilot study to increase HIV testing among women clinic patients.
This animated layered painting is the result of a 3-month design collaboration between PhD Design students, Amanda Geppert and Cornelia Bailey at Chicago’s IIT Institute Design and Kathryn Havens, the physician director of the Women’s Health Pact team at the Zablocki VA in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The design challenge: How to integrate routine HIV testing in VA Women’s Health Clinics using the Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) model.
The video will be screened in November as part of the 141st APHA Annual Meeting & Exposition which attracts more than 13,000 national and international physicians, administrators, nurses, educators, researchers, epidemiologists, and related health specialists.
The American Public Health Association (APHA) is the oldest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world and has been working to improve public health since 1872. The Association aims to protect all Americans, their families and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States. APHA represents a broad array of health professionals and others who care about their own health and the health of their communities.
The PACT team was fortunate to have design researchers who helped to identify key elements for diffusion of our results.
The Zablocki Milwaukee VA Women's health team in collaboration with the IIT Institute of Design team sought to increase HIV testing among women veterans.
Together they identified a relatively simple process change in workflow wherein the LPN obtains consent for HIV testing at the same time that standard panels for cholesterol, blood sugar are offered, thus decreasing the stigma traditionally associated with HIV testing.
This process change ensures that patients are consistently offered the test, an important factor for women who may be infected with HIV but have no discernable high-risk behavior, since her risk may be related to her partner's behavior and not her own.
Early detection of HIV means effective treatment as a chronic disease.
Design methods were applied vigorously, not only for data collection, but also for intentional team building. The integration of design methods and medicine not only led to the creation of an impactful video solution but also to a short, simple and compelling way to disseminate findings with other VA medical providers.
Since its completion, the video has been placed on the national HIV VA site.
The story and video was presented to VA national champions throughout the entire country for implementation by other PACT teams.