Information and Connection with Transgender Healthcare Patients on the Waiting List

Trans people need to wait 3 years before they receive medical and psychiatric help in the Netherlands. During this time, they receive little to no communication from the Amsterdam UMC. They need to look up all medical information, events, and community themselves. In my interviews with trans patients I've learned that the lack of communication towards the patients makes the AUMC feel uncaring and antagonistic. Information is often outdated, wrong, too technical or too surface level, not applicable to the Dutch care track, or made with ill intent by transphobes. This can be isolating, depressing, and can make the AUMC feel cold and impersonal. My goal was to create a service that alleviates all of these issues, without taking time and budget away from medical professionals.

Design

I learned from my interviews that finding community and going to events helped; that patients feel much more comfortable if trans people are the ones helping; and that they need help finding therapists with low waiting times. I chose to develop a concept for a mailing list to be sent to patients in order to create the feeling of the hospital reaching out to the patient, while not demanding any time from the understaffed healthcare professionals.

The mailing list features:

• An ETA for the wait time (as much as I'm allowed to give it).
• Official information. The topics increase in level of difficulty over the months.
• Transgender news. This can help patients feel like part of the community. Stories are selected so that they're not too depressing all the time, while keeping important stories that might affect the reader.
• Upcoming information- and queer events in the reader's area. This promotes a sense of community.
• Therapists with low waiting times in the reader's area and if they have experience with trans patients.
• Invitation to a semi-official online community can drastically lower the bar to entry.
• Tips and stories by other patients on the waiting list can remind patients of their own agency in their transition.
• An "about the author" section to humanize the mailing list, and make it not feel like a computer or a cis person is talking to the patient

Collaboration with the Amsterdam UMC

During this project I stayed in contact with the AUMC's 'project team for patient information in trans healthcare', who found my work very valuable, and used my insights for their work. I've recently spoken to them again and they said they were going to use my insights in their pitch to management for an information system.

What I learned

• Collaboration with official entities.
• Human centered service design for information services.