Brian
Urban

Brian describes how income and education data can contribute to work on social needs through the Data Humanity Lab. He also points to research, grant-writing and social-work teams. Useful information needs an organizational path to the people who can turn it into a funded or coordinated effort.

Watch ↗Building Trust Through Education and Data InnovationHighway to Health · Sep 20, 2023

Shawn Nason brings both experience-design work and his own cancer experience to the conversation with Brian. Those perspectives make patient experience tangible: the person receiving care encounters an entire service, rather than a set of separate departments. His interview brings design decisions back to the sequence of moments a patient actually experiences.

Brian describes starting and ending his day by caring for his children and animals. He says those responsibilities give energy to the hours between them. It is a personal account of how family routines shape his day alongside the healthcare conversations in this collection.

Sheila Phicil tells Brian about Boston Medical Center’s use of navigators to connect patients with housing, food and employment resources. Her account moves health equity from a general aspiration into an operating responsibility: someone helps bridge the patient’s needs and the services around them. She also argues for partnerships that support longer-term opportunity, extending the discussion beyond a single charitable intervention.

Eva Stahl and Priscilla Keith explain to Brian how their organization works on medical-debt relief and policy partnerships. Stahl connects the burden of debt with financial stress and physical and mental well-being. Their conversation widens the healthcare discussion beyond a bill’s collection status to the consequences for the person receiving it. It records the organization’s approach at the time of the interview.