YST Program
Empowering high-risk teens with support from trusted adults
Timeline
Nov 2021 - Jan 2022
Role
Product Design Lead
Company
Oui Therapeutics
Challenge: Design an automated workflow for the YST program that includes nomination, messaging, and clinical management to deliver a high-quality experience efficiently.
1. Context
Background
The Youth-Nominated Support Team (YST) program was developed by Dr. Cheryl King, a renowned expert on youth suicide. Her decades of research have demonstrated significantly higher survival rates among teens who participated in the YST program.
Program Overview
The YST program involves a teen selecting trusted adults in their life. These adults are then approved by the teen's parent. Once approved, the adults are invited to participate in the program. If they accept, they receive training on how to support a teen struggling with suicidal thoughts. Regular check-ins with clinicians support these adults while they assist the teen.
The official program runs for three months per teen. After the formal program ends, the caring adults can choose to continue their support, and many often do.
Program Participants
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Teen
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Parent
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Caring Adults
High-Level Workflow
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Teen nominates adults; parent approves.
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Nominated adults accept participation.
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Caring adults receive training.
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Ongoing support and check-ins for caring adults.
2. Problem
The YST program was previously delivered in a labor-intensive, manual manner, requiring clinical staff to manage spreadsheets and emails. Oui Therapeutics saw an opportunity to streamline this process with an automated workflow that includes clinical touchpoints at critical steps.
3. Hypothesis
Streamlining the administrative tasks and automating messages while maintaining clinical staff involvement at key points will increase the number of teen participants and reduce the time clinicians need to manage the program.
4. Solution
Pilot Phase
When Oui first collaborated with Dr. Cheryl King, we aimed to pilot the YST program with Oui’s sister telehealth company, Vita Health, which focuses on providing therapeutic services to teens.
Learning and Planning: We started by thoroughly understanding the YST program, its workflow, and the intent behind each step. Dr. King's extensive manual on delivering YST served as our foundation. We then engaged in conversations to gain deeper insights into each part of the program.
Initial Implementation: We developed a workflow for telehealth clinicians, including scripts, FAQs, and email templates. Everything was vetted with Dr. King and other SMEs to ensure protocol fidelity and appropriate tone.
Feedback and Iteration: As telehealth clinicians began implementing the program, we collected feedback and made revisions. This iterative process helped the program evolve and reach more teens.
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Creating v1 Software
After several months of the pilot program, we consolidated feedback from teens and clinicians. Our primary objective for the YST program software was to reduce the time clinicians spent delivering the program while maintaining high-quality delivery.
Focus Areas
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Teen Nomination and Parental Approval
We kept the initial video call interaction but provided software to facilitate teen nominations and parent approvals in a recorded manner.
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Automated Communications
We automated some communications with parents and teens, while others were templated but manually triggered by clinicians at the appropriate times.
This v1 software served as an incremental improvement to the manual workflow.
Enhancing the Software
In the next phase, our objectives were:
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Reduce clinician administrative tasks while maintaining clinical involvement at crucial points.
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Create an asynchronous workflow.
Rebuilding the Software: We rebuilt the software from the ground up, rethinking the YST program's overall delivery. Our goal was to expand the program's reach to more teens with fewer staff. Separating the teen and parent workflow proved challenging but necessary.
Key Human Interventions:
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Escalations
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Caring Adult training call
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Caring Adult check-in calls
Improving Comfort and Communication: Removing the requirement for the teen and parent to be together during nomination allowed teens to be more comfortable when selecting their adults. The software automatically notified the parent when nominations were ready for approval and facilitated a dialogue if necessary.
Supporting Caring Adults: We introduced tailored resources and online support for the caring adults. The software sent weekly ratings on how the adult’s time with the teen was going, helping escalate and resolve issues more quickly.
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