Welcome back to another episode of MedCity FemFwd, a podcast dedicated to discussing the breakthroughs and challenges in women’s health. In this episode, we’re joined by Abbie Clary, executive director of Health for All for CannonDesign, an architecture design company.
Clary works with numerous health systems on designing their healthcare spaces. She discusses why healthcare traditionally hasn’t been built around women, and what needs to change.
Here is an AI-generated transcript of the episode.
Marissa Plescia: Welcome back to another episode of MedCity Fem Forward. I’m Marissa Plescia, reporter from MedCity News. It’s no secret that healthcare has traditionally been designed around men, and changes need to be made to healthcare spaces and products in order to be more inclusive of women. That’s why in this episode, we’re joined by Abby Clary, an architect and executive director of Health for All, for Canon Design.
Hi Abby. Thanks so much for joining Med City from Ford.
Abbie Clary: Yeah, thanks for inviting me. Excited to be here. Yeah, of course. Happy to have you. And so maybe just to start, uh, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your work as an architect in the healthcare space? Yeah, so I’ve been, um, working in the healthcare space for almost 30 years, I guess.
And, you know, I would say that I’ve moved from architect into advocate. ’cause today as a, as a designer, I’m thinking a whole lot more about like patient experience, staff experience in ways that, I didn’t think about that a long time ago. Um, super focused on projects that can make. Massive impact. You know, it’s not necessarily about the size.
I do work on a lot of very large projects, which I think allow me to have a little more flexibility to make that impact. But it’s not about the size of the project, it’s really about what the client wants to do and who they’re serving and, and hopefully that they wanna make a difference from a, from an experiential perspective.
Marissa: Really interesting. Um, so going off of that, you know, in the. In the women’s healthcare space, what do you feel like is really wrong with the way that, um, healthcare spaces have been built for women?
Abbie: Well, I guess historically overall, women have been excluded from all sorts of. Not just healthcare space, but you know, uh, research and, um, design processes and medical trials.
Like all of those things have been predominantly focused on men and the male body. So when we design, when, when spaces have been designed historically, it is actually with. The male’s position in mind as well. And I’ll give you, um, a couple examples. There’s examples in products. There’s examples in so when I’m thinking about design, I’m not just thinking about architecture.
There’s products, uh, in products, there’s in space. So like, one example is like artificial hips. They were made anatomically as a one size fits all for the male body. And they, um, fail. Much more often in women because of that. Like there’s a product that was designed that way. I also like CPR Mannequins, they were designed, you know, with again, the male anatomy, which causes hesitation for people when it’s a woman who needs CPR, you know, either doing it or doing it correctly.
Um, another example is, you know, women are. Supposed to have babies in sort of in the squatting position, but we have been set up in rooms, in the lithotomy position, laying on our backs for the convenience of the doctor, which historically, a long time ago, were mostly men. So you can see that all sorts of things have been designed, not with our, with us in mind, you know, and how we function, how we feel, uh, even our emotional needs.
Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. Really well said. Um, so maybe you, you talked about this a little bit, but can you go into a little bit more detail about how poor design, um, can really affect women’s health?
Abbie: Yeah, so there was, um, there’s been lots of studies on design and health in general. It’s been proven that like views of nature and the ability to have choice.
And the ability to have privacy helps for women to not be as dismissed. ’cause we are historically, our, our pain or our words about what is happening have been historically dismissed. There’s also a loss of trust, I guess you would say. So if women are put into a space where there’s not enough privacy or um, they are physically uncomfortable, or, you know, they, they consistently feel unseen. That causes loss of trust, which then potentially causes the woman or women to not seek out attention. And that obviously creates even greater health, uh, disparity and poor outcomes.
Marissa: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and so you’re working with numerous health systems like Fred Hutch, university of Chicago, to redesign their spaces. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the work that you’re doing for these, uh, for these health systems?
Abbie: What’s really great about these health systems is they were willing to think about experience differently. So when we design an, we call it an experience strategy, so when we design an experience strategy, we do that in order to inform the built environment, because otherwise I’m building or designing spaces that I, I presume I know what you need, which is obviously what we’re trying to undo.
So when we’re designing experiences. We think about the built environment, we think about operations, care model, you know, workflow, that type of thing. We also have to look at the client’s culture because that’s a big part of experience. And then there’s enabling technology. So these clients that you, you’ve mentioned, we’re willing to look at that experience, approach holistically and be part of designing, and then.
And then making the solution happen. So like for example, at Memorial Sloan Kettering we’re designing their new cancer pavilion and we did deep research with in five different languages with patients that they have patients that they want, patients that don’t wanna come there with their staff. And we learned a whole lot about what it means.
To be a cancer patient, for example. So these clients are letting us do this deep research so that we can synthesize it into experiences that are relevant to their communities. And that’s what I want to do with women’s health is really get that the women’s voice more into the design process so that we can synthesize that and then develop experiences that are wholly relevant to them and or us, I should say, instead of, again, a one size fits all.
Marissa: Yeah. And when you’re working with these health systems, are you doing any specific women’s health projects for them or is it kind of just embedded in everything that you do for these health systems?
Abbie: Um, we are, I mean, we do have women’s specific projects like we’re doing, um, at Ohio Health, uh, in Columbus, Ohio, we’re doing a women’s hospital.
It’s a one of a kind because it’s actually focused on the continuum of care. You know, another thing is typically women’s health is focused on reproduction. And that’s it. So we have hospitals that are really focused on birthing and babies yet. We have things that go beyond having babies, right? So, um, the women’s hospital in Ohio is focused on all of women’s health from the day you get your period to the day you go into menopause and everything that happens in between, which is quite unusual.
So that’s a pretty exciting project because, and they also have done, um, patient research and, uh, looking at spaces that empower, you know, a lot of people think that it’s not just about like. Pink and like curves. Soft colors, right? I mean, not all women are like that either. It’s about empowerment for the right, you know, for what that woman specifically needs.
And so these spaces were set up with that in mind, and also feedback.
Marissa: Yeah. Really glad that you called that, um, that out and the importance to go beyond just, uh, reproduction, so that’s great. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. And so how does design differ depending on specialty, whether that’s mental health, hospitals, public health, et cetera?
Abbie: Yeah. So the concept is the same, right? I mean, it’s, it’s creating human centered spaces that are relevant. So it’s same, similar process, but the outcomes can be different. Mental health, sometimes it’s about safety and not intimidation. It’s about environments that reduce anxiety in cancer, it’s about, um, high tech.
Coupled with hope and inspiration and looking at, at design for survivorship instead of for, uh, you know, reactive and and I guess you would say we were looking at chronic instead of you know, this one situation and like in women’s health, it’s about, like I said, dignity and empowerment and thinking about the whole continuum and seeing us as whole people and not just reproductive people.
Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well said. Um, well, I just have one last question for you. You know, what’s your biggest piece of advice for healthcare organizations on how they can better design for women?
Abbie: I think probably my biggest advice is first. I have a couple probably, sorry. But first it would be to really understand what experience is right?
And not just think that efficiency means good experience. ’cause a lot of hospitals and, and health institutions think, oh, we got ’em in and out. That’s a good experience. There’s so much more to an experience. And then I guess I would say the second is to unlearn. What you think you know about the community you’re serving and do that deep listening so that you can come in unbiased and hear what these women actually need and what will allow them to be empowered in their own health to improve outcomes.
’cause if you don’t unlearn and then relearn and listen, you’re gonna still carry your unconscious bias with you, which is something that we all struggle with. In general. So that would be my second piece of advice.
Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. So important. Great advice there. Well, Abby, this has been such an interesting conversation. Thank you so much for joining MedCity FemFwd.
Abbie: Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it.
