Reimagining women's health, starting with access

We started a women's health initiative around one conviction: design shapes whether that access exists. The waiting room that assumes a free weekday afternoon. The intake form built around a body that isn't hers. Each is a decision someone made, which means each can be made differently.

Through workshops and honest conversations, we looked at women's healthcare the way we'd look at any system failing the people inside it. We asked what women actually deserve, which design defaults quietly turn them away, and what care looks like when a space is built on purpose for the woman using it.

Four themes came out of the work:

• Women as the baseline
• Support her, support all
• Maternal care, built around her
• Care for her lifespan
  

CannonDesign’s Emily Bateman, AIA, ACHA and Maggie West, MBA share insights and design implications for how we can design women’s healthcare, with women fully at the center of design decisions. “For too long, women have been ignored in health care. Clinical trials didn’t include women until the 1990s, and many studies failed to recognize how certain diseases, such as heart disease or chronic illnesses, show up differently in women. While we’re beginning to address those gaps, we’re still playing catch up in patient education, prevention and facility design.” says West.