product

‍we propose the first HIPAA-compliant app to connect lgbtq+ cancer patients with compassionate and competent healthcare services

overview

‍we created exviva for columbia university's healthcare hackathon (though it felt like a pitch competition). the judges included a range of biomedical professors, VCs, and founders. we ultimately won 3rd place of 20 teams as well as the audience choice award (i'm satisfied since we lost to literal grad students/PhDs). we won cute columbia mugs and portable chargers :)

team

‍emelie nguyen, maxx yung, will borges, ayush singh

tools

‍figma (prototyping, visual design)

research

for the first time ever, the american cancer society (ACS) included a special section in their annual cancer report dedicated to LGBTQ+ patients. more than 40% of all cancers in the general population are attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors, and many factors have elevated prevalence among LGBTQ+ individuals likely due to minority stress.

however, LGBTQ+ individuals with cancer experience disparate outcomes across the cancer continuum, including prevention, screening and early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and palliative care. a huge factor contributing to this inequity is healthcare discrimination. 50% of LGBTQ+ patients claim they have faced harassment from medical professionals, and 20% avoid healthcare settings all together due to fear of harassment.

even if LGBTQ+ individuals were able to reach treatment, 60% of oncologists are not confident in their knowledge of LGB health needs and 80% of oncologists are not confident in their knowledge of transgender health needs.

exacerbating the issue, medical providers can legally deny care to LGBTQ+ people in 9 states including ohio and florida. and how many LGBTQ+ people reside in these states? 20%.

as the LGBTQ+ population continues to grow (21% of gen z identifies LGBTQ+ compared to 3% of baby boomers), bridging healthcare equity for this relatively untargeted population is crucial.

that's where exviva comes in.

ideation

given we had about 20 hours to do this (and i wanted my beauty sleep), i didn't do any wireframes and went straight to the final ui. i took inspiration from apps that i've used in the past and other telehealth apps.

for bearable, i liked the factor view where you can log your factors with a horizontal calendar view.

for the forums, i wanted a simpler version of reddit and without ads too.

for the telemedicine platform, i took inspiriation from teladoc which was the most user-friendly telehealth app i could find in my 5-minute google search.

product

below, i will show the three key features of our app that we saw as most important for supporting LGBTQ+ individuals with illness.

choose a provider

‍discrimination and poor knowledge of LGBT health needs were core factors in why many avoid healthcare. with exviva's specialty tags, users are able to find physicians based on not only their medical specialties, but their acceptance of LGBT patients such as trans women.  

furthermore, our telemedicine platform ensures individuals are able to access healthcare around their own schedules wherever, even if physicians in their state can refuse them based on their identity.

track lifestyle factors ‍

LGBTQ+ individuals are at higher risk for engaging in cancer risk behaviors such as poor diet and e-cigarettes. in our app, individuals can track recommended lifestyle factors based on their identity (eg. smoking is most prevalent among bisexual women) and physician recommendations. users can also track custom factors of their choosing.

this data can then be exported to their healthcare providers to deliver objective, non-judgemental information about lifestyle choices for better health insights.

find your community

‍in such a society where you can be shunned for your identity, technology like our app is needed to connect LGBT folks to supportive communities. within exviva, patients are able to share their stories and interact with users with optional anonymity. this anonymity protects users who live in fear of being outed.

reflections

this was my first hackathon and it was definitely something i'd do again. maxx and i came to the competition with no clue of who we'd team with, and ended up finding the two perfect people to do so. will, a senior at brown and our peer from roslyn high school, was a huge carry with heaps of knowledge in the oncological space and entrepreneurship space. working in <24 hours also made me hyper-aware of figma shortcuts to optimize my workflow. after pitching our idea to the VCs, this may be an idea we actually translate to reality :)

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