Connect to Meds

What it is. An active nursing-research collaboration on medication access among marginally-housed residents of San Francisco’s 6th Street corridor, with a manuscript in preparation. The principal investigator is Dr. Elizabeth Sibson-Tuan, ABSN Program Director at Samuel Merritt University. I am a research collaborator and co-author. The work happens at care sites operated by Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco.

The problem behind it. People living in supportive housing in SoMa face some of the steepest medication-access barriers in the city: complicated polypharmacy, fragmented prescribers, transportation friction, missed refill cycles, and a documentation system designed around clinic visits rather than residences. The clinical literature describes the gap, but the day-to-day texture of how medications actually do or do not get into a resident’s hand has not been carefully described.

What I am doing. Field engagement across the ECS properties (The Crosby, The Henry, The Alder, Mentone) alongside the SMU community-health rotation. Chart and workflow review for medication-access events. Data structuring and qualitative coding for the manuscript. And bringing an experience-design lens (audience research, friction mapping) to a clinical-research workflow that does not usually have one. Dr. Sibson-Tuan leads the study design and the academic side of the manuscript.

Why this project, for me. The closest analogue in my current portfolio to direct psychiatric and community mental-health practice. The clinic and the patient never quite meet on equal footing when one of them is bedbound or unable to leave the building, so the work is figuring out what arrives at the door instead.

Status. Manuscript in preparation, fall 2025 onward. Updates will surface here and on Writing as the work progresses.