A pathway to pilot within a federal mental health system
Case study Context:
Creating a pathway for federally funded suicide prevention innovations to pilot within the largest integrated healthcare system in the U.S.
Challenge:
One of the first pathways for moving private startup and community-based suicide prevention innovations into real-world pilots within the VA.
High volume of rolling applications requires clear organization and interpretation for thoughtful decision-making.
Resources must support awardees with varying levels of product maturity and familiarity with the system.
Federal stakeholders have limited time and capacity to engage with and adopt pilots.
MY ROLE:
I worked across innovators, federal stakeholders, and internal teams to bring structure to an emerging pathway from external innovation to pilot.
Much of my role involved clarifying what different groups needed — often under time and resource constraints — and translating that into programming, application design, and systems that made it easier to engage, evaluate, and move forward.
What I did:
For innovators
Surfaced common blockers and themes across cohorts with varying levels of product maturity
Connected innovators to federal stakeholders and processes by designing an engaging and scalable “ask-me-anything” virtual series
Synthesized insights from interviews, coaching sessions, and feedback into tools and resources to support innovators across different stages
Positioned innovators to engage meaningfully with potential pilot champions
For federal stakeholders
Designed sessions and interactions that made participation more efficient and valuable for stakeholders with limited time
Created conditions for stakeholders to engage meaningfully with potential pilots, helping them champion and provide feedback on what they would need
Simplified application, onboarding, and data processes to make it easier for stakeholders to evaluate, engage with, and move forward with potential pilots
Across the process
Identified gaps in how information was captured and structured across applications, onboarding, and reporting
Redesigned templates and data collection processes to better reflect what stakeholders needed to evaluate and act on, making incoming data more consistent and easier to interpret
Designed a centralized dashboard to surface key insights, enabling clearer and more efficient decision-making
Outcomes:
Increased stakeholder and innovator engagement despite limited time and competing priorities
Surfaced insights across a diverse innovation portfolio, improving visibility into shared needs and themes
Reduced manual, high-touch processes, enabling stakeholders with limited capacity to focus on identifying and supporting the most promising innovations
Created evergreen resources for incoming suicide prevention innovators external to VA, including interviews and tips around pitching and storytelling to potential champions, Veteran-centered design, and meaningful data collection
Reflections:
This work made clear how important it is to ask the right questions, clarify intent, and identify patterns across stakeholder groups — especially in high-stakes environments like suicide prevention. While needs were often expressed differently, there were consistent patterns underneath.
Once those patterns became clear, the solutions were often simpler than expected. Focusing on what people actually needed — and what motivated them — made it possible to design programming, resources, and processes that unblocked points of friction, kept key players engaged, and helped decisions be made thoughtfully — even within tight time and capacity constraints.