Overview
The Problem
My Contribution
Research Process
Findings
Solution
Takeaways
Developing a "Transition from Hospital to Home
(TH2H Strategy)" for cancer caregivers with a child diagnosed
with cancer
For Recruiters - What This Case Study Is About
Patient Engagement
Health Service Research
Med Device Concept
Mobile App Design
Wireframing
Journey Mapping
Personas
My current role with the Indiana CTSI involves conducting patient-centric healthcare research aimed at uncovering challenges in healthcare services & delivery.
I worked with cancer-caregivers and healthcare providers at researching the challenges caregivers face when transitioning home with a child with cancer.
The goal of this project was to formulate a new “Transition from Hospital to Home (TH2H)” strategy that centers around real caregiver experiences and informs future research and care practices.
Jump to Solution
Year
2025
For
Indiana CTSI
Role
Healthcare UX Researcher
The Problem
The transition from hospital to home is one of the most demanding phases in a child’s cancer journey - especially for caregivers who need to balance medical, emotional, and everyday responsibilities. They navigate complex treatment instructions, emotional uncertainty, and the pressures of maintaining stability for their family, often with limited support.
Here are some challenges cancer-caregivers go through -
There's a lot of information for caregivers to remember, it can get overwhelming
Caregivers often make mistakes with medical regimens. This leads to unsafe med and nutritional interactions.
There's a lot of information for caregivers to remember, it can get overwhelming
Caregivers often make mistakes with medical regimens. This leads to unsafe med and nutritional interactions.
Objective
🔍 Identify key components of the transition from 🏥 Hospital to Home 🏠, to formulate a new 🎯 strategy to help solve a caregiver's transitional challenges when moving back home with a child with cancer 🤒
Research Process
/ Study Design
We designed a parallel and comparative research study involving two key groups: 14 caregivers of children with cancer and 10 pediatric cancer specialists -including oncologists, nurses, and social workers - directly involved in the care journey.
This approach sought to uncover insights from both perspectives, recognizing the roles and responsibilities that caregivers and healthcare providers enable.
👩🏻🍼
14 Caregivers
🩺
10 Pediatric Cancer
Specialists
🖌
Facilitated 2 three-hour workshops
To capture these experiences holistically, we mapped the journey across five key milestones:
Beginning of Admission – Establishing expectations, communication patterns, and the first exposure to the hospital care system.
Few Days Before Discharge – Identifying gaps in preparedness, emotional readiness, and confidence in managing care independently.
Discharge Day – Understanding how information, resources, and support are transferred from the clinical team to the caregiver.
First Day at Home – Examining the immediate realities and challenges of adapting clinical care to the home environment.
Clinical Follow-up 1 – Exploring how early experiences shape long-term confidence, stress, and continuity of care.
We identified intersecting pain points and disconnects in expectations, communication, and emotional support.
🌟 This dual-lens framework helped us move beyond isolated experiences to reveal systemic insights - such as where clinical handoffs falter, how emotional reassurance is inconsistently provided, and what tools or resources caregivers wish they had at each stage.
Research Methodology & Insights
A divergent–convergent framework enables a broader exploration of the landscape of experiences. This structure ensured that both caregivers and pediatric cancer specialists were given equal opportunity to express their perspectives before aligning on shared priorities for improving the hospital-to-home transition.
Guided Discussion
We began with guided discussion sessions to surface personal stories and contextual experiences around the hospital-to-home transition. Caregivers shared what the discharge process felt like - what was confusing, what helped, and what they wished had been different. In parallel, pediatric oncologists and nurses reflected on what information they try to convey, and where communication breakdowns often occur. These semi-structured discussions helped establish empathy, uncover early themes, and frame the broader landscape of challenges from both sides.
/ insights
We’re sent home with too much to remember and no one to ask. Caregivers described discharge as cognitively overwhelming, with rushed instructions, unclear priorities, and no follow-up system. The absence of structured, repeatable reinforcement made them second-guess their care decisions at home.
Journey Mapping
We mapped caregiver and clinician journeys in parallel to surface misalignments across the care continuum. Each journey map captured key stages in the discharge and home care experience — from last day in hospital to weeks into at-home recovery. We visualized touchpoints, pain points, emotions, tools used, and questions asked at each phase.
/ insights
We’re sent home with too much to remember and no one to ask. Caregivers described discharge as cognitively overwhelming, with rushed instructions, unclear priorities, and no follow-up system. The absence of structured, repeatable reinforcement made them second-guess their care decisions at home.
Day in the life of
To better understand the caregiver workload, we used a ‘Day in the Life’ exercise to document post-discharge routines. Participants walked us through a typical day at home: medication timing, wound care, cooking specialized meals, attending to siblings, monitoring symptoms, coordinating with doctors, and navigating work/life balance. We asked them to note emotional highs and lows, moments of panic, and strategies they used to stay organized
/ insights
We’re sent home with too much to remember and no one to ask. Caregivers described discharge as cognitively overwhelming, with rushed instructions, unclear priorities, and no follow-up system. The absence of structured, repeatable reinforcement made them second-guess their care decisions at home.
Empathy Maps
We created empathy maps to center the emotional and sensory experience of caregivers.Through workshop synthesis, we categorized quotes and observations into four quadrants: Says, Thinks, Feels, Does. This allowed us to capture internal contradictions and latent needs
/ insights
We’re sent home with too much to remember and no one to ask. Caregivers described discharge as cognitively overwhelming, with rushed instructions, unclear priorities, and no follow-up system. The absence of structured, repeatable reinforcement made them second-guess their care decisions at home.
Prioritization Matrix
The workflow begins when users manually upload image or video footage captured from their security cameras. Once uploaded, the system standardizes each file—resizing, normalizing, and preparing it for annotation through a clean, intuitive upload interface. This process ensures that all media conforms to a consistent dimensions and format, making subsequent labeling more predictable and consistent.
/ insights
We’re sent home with too much to remember and no one to ask. Caregivers described discharge as cognitively overwhelming, with rushed instructions, unclear priorities, and no follow-up system. The absence of structured, repeatable reinforcement made them second-guess their care decisions at home.
Formulating an effective transition strategy for cancer caregivers
/ Study Design
We designed a parallel and comparative research study involving two key groups: 14 caregivers of children with cancer and 10 pediatric healthcare professionals -including oncologists, nurses, and social workers - directly involved in the hospital-to-home transition process.
This approach sought to uncover insights from both perspectives, recognizing the roles and responsibilities that caregivers and healthcare providers enable.
The experiences are very different across the transition. Caregivers grapple with the emotional and logistical weight of managing complex care routines at home, while clinicians must balance providing information, reassurance, and follow-up continuity within constrained systems of care.
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