Diagnosing the Trust Gap

Through stakeholder interviews, observational studies, and patient flow analysis, we were able to identify a few things at play that explained this behavior.

Status quo bias
‍Patients default to hospital care because it’s what they (and others) know. Stories and cultural scripts reinforce the belief that longer, more medicalized recovery = safer.

Ambiguity Aversion & Low Confidence
‍Even if patients are told recovery at home is better, they may not feel confident managing it — or fear the unknowns of doing it themselves without professional oversight.

Social Norms & Identity
‍Patients might resist being outliers, especially when it comes to something high-stakes like health. Few patients saw home recovery as “what people like me do.”

The real risk wasn’t medical, it was emotional. People didn’t need more instructions. They needed a confidence-building experience.

Designing Systems of Reassurance: Behavioral Levers

To shift behavior, we designed a system that applied several mutually reinforcing behavioral strategies. Key interventions were piloted at select sites, allowing us to test effectiveness, gather feedback, and refine the approach before scaling system-wide.

Defaults
‍“Empowered recovery” became the assumed path. For those who didn’t meet clinical criteria — or simply preferred to stay in the hospital — opt-outs were respected, preserving patient agency while still nudging toward better outcomes.
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Framing
‍We positioned home recovery as a graduation rather than a discharge — aligning emotional tone with confidence and safety.
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Progressive transparency & adaptive support
‍Clinical information was delivered at the right time in the right way — reducing cognitive overload and building trust through personalization.
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Norm signaling
‍Through language, clinician alignment, and default positioning, we signaled that home recovery was the standard, not the exception.
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Message consistency
‍Every part of the system — from clinical scripts to follow-up emails — reinforced a single, clear narrative: home recovery is safe, supported, and is the main recovery pathway.

Designing Systems of Reassurance: Turning Theory Into Action

In addition to driving enterprise-wide tech and messaging enhancements, I created a behavioral playbook that turned theory into actionable tools for clinical and operations teams. It translated abstract principles — like defaults, framing, and emotional tone — into on-the-ground assets: medical-surgical care pathways, shared decision-making guides, and home recovery checklists.

Co-designed with cross-functional leaders, the playbook was practical, compliant, and emotionally attuned. It helped teams align around a shared experience vision and ensured consistent application of behavioral insights across diverse hospital contexts.

As a living document, the playbook supported both the initial rollout and continued evolution — enabling teams to adapt the learnings to their particular needs over time.

Envisioning What’s Next: A Mobile App Concept

To further strengthen the post-op recovery experience, I designed a mobile app as a digital bridge between clinical care and home healing. Grounded in research, the design addressed key patient concerns: loss of connection, low self-efficacy, and over-reliance on memory.

From Friction to Flow: A NCQA Innovation Award Winner

Reimagining recovery for 4.3M+ patients meant shifting entrenched mental models, not just clinical protocols. As a leadership team, our focus was to transform anxiety into agency and system-level friction into confident recovery.

Impact
I redesigned post-surgical recovery across 21 hospitals by addressing key barriers: status quo bias, ambiguity aversion, and low self-efficacy. By applying levers like defaults, framing, progressive disclosure, and adaptive support, we reduced post-op complications, shortened recovery times, and helped patients feel confident recovering at home.
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Innovation
I led the design strategy across a multidisciplinary team, embedding cognitive science into clinical pathways, digital tools, and human interactions. The result was a fully integrated system that earned national recognition from NCQA for this work’s human-centered approach to improving health at scale.
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Leadership
Partnering directly with C-suite physician leaders to shape strategy rooted in behavioral and research insights, I mentored clinicians in applying design frameworks — shifting frontline clinician behavior as well as patient behavior. These frameworks continue driving transformation across the system.
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Business Impact
This work demonstrated how applied behavioral science can drive measurable outcomes: reduced complications, improved recovery times, and increased operational efficiency — while elevating the system’s reputation for experience-driven care.