Accessing mental health records is far more than a request for information, it's an intimate encounter with one's past, identity, and healing journey. Yet in Ireland, this process is slow, fragmented, and emotionally unsupported. Patients wait weeks or even years, left in uncertainty about what's been written about them, how they were evaluated, and what decisions were made on their behalf.
Our team are myself, Nikhil Afonso, Shivangi Bodh, Swetha Vukkadala, and Yujing Liang, partnered with Lia Foley-Kelleher (NCAD), a product designer and patient advocate passionate about mental health equity. Together, we explored a bold question:
To craft a supportive, transparent, human-centred access experience that respects:
This helped us:
We examined global best practices, psychological safety frameworks, digital health regulation, trauma-informed design, and patient-access models.
We explored:
We evaluated digital mental health systems in: Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Iceland, the UK, and the USA.
This gave us a broad sense of what is culturally possible, and where Ireland stands behind.
We interviewed two mental health professionals to unpack:
Access is not the problem. Unsupported access is.
Users wanted:
66.7% reported significant difficulty accessing mental health records
Many expressed fear about "what might be written"
We distilled patterns across all inputs, uncovering themes
such as:
Our solutions center around empathy, clarity, and psychological safety.
A brief guided reflection helps users confirm they feel prepared before reading sensitive information.
Complex psychiatric terms are translated into everyday language, without altering clinical integrity.
Integrated grounding techniques, crisis resources, and optional support prompts when encountering difficult content.
High-contrast UI, dyslexia-friendly text options, scalable typography, WCAG-compliant colors. Fully tested for color blindness using Stark.
Users can see: Who wrote each note, When it was recorded, Who has accessed their records. This fosters trust through clarity.
After accessing notes, users can write personal reflections or questions to discuss with providers.
Carefully limited AI capabilities that: Summarize notes, Provide definitions, Flag sensitive passages to read mindfully. This was designed with strong ethical boundaries to avoid misinterpretation.
We tested both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes with:
We created the first design model (within our research scope) that integrates: Emotional preparedness, Clear explanations, Psychological safety, Transparency about authorship and access, Patient agency, Clear language, Trauma-informed interfaces
WCAG-compliant, tested through Stark, and usable across demographics including older adults and those with low digital literacy.
Our solution gives patients: Ownership over their records, Emotional preparedness, Clear explanations, Psychological safety, Transparency about authorship and access, Patient agency
By clarifying who wrote what and why, the design reduces the uncertainty that often leads to mistrust.
Our prototype directly responded to real emotional needs, clinical realities, and accessibility barriers.
The system has potential to inform: Irish healthcare modernization, Mental health policy improvements, Future digital health standards
This project allowed us to blend human-centered design, clinical empathy, trauma-informed practices, and digital innovation to reimagine one of the most sensitive interactions in healthcare.
We didn't design a tool. We designed a supportive experience, one that respects the emotional truth behind every mental health record and empowers patients with clarity, dignity, and trust.
For convenience, you can explore the prototype by clicking the link below to access the interactions.
View Figma Prototype