VERONICA X. VELA

In 2014, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) endured a high-profile scandal that broke the trust between Veterans and the agency. Investigations revealed wide-spread negligence of Veterans waiting to receive medical care and systemic manipulation of the scheduling system to appear to meet VA’s access to care standards. In order to make systematic improvements, two years later, the agency began a journey to understand how Veterans experience care at VA medical centers using a human centered design approach.  

This project led to the development of VA’s Patient Experience initiative, a national program to improve how Veterans experience VA care across 152 health care systems in the United States. 

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ROLES

Creative Director, Design Research Lead​