Driving positive change in Maternal Health
Our team bridges the gap between lived experience and clinical excellence by integrating human-centered design directly into the maternal health landscape.
Our team has worked with State Hospital Associations, Perinatal Quality Collaboratives, and various health systems across the country on rural maternal health initiatives, and we look forward to expanding our work under the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) and Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) Model grants.
We facilitate boots-on-the-ground in-person design sessions with patients, community members, and other key stakeholders to create mixed-methods research reports. We also develop validated benchmarking assessments for hospitals, health systems, and other organizations to assess their current state and translate their findings into appropriate, actionable next steps.
We design and facilitate multi-session in-person and virtual learning collaboratives for teams and organizations to both refine their vision and ideate their plan for achieving said vision. In addition, these learning collaboratives often incorporate elements of champion mentorship and peer-to-peer learning, allowing for cross-pollination of ideas between groups that may otherwise not communicate.
We convene key stakeholders and guide them in visioning macro strategies for their organization. These high impact sessions synthesize big ideas with built-in accountability for actualizing those ideas.
We create playbooks tailored to those on the frontlines (providers, nurses, EMS) to guide them through implementing best practices and improvement iniatives.
We have digital and visual teams dedicated to designing virtual tools that are user-friendly, accessible, and tailored to needs of specific organizations.
We develop software and bespoke digital hubs that enable peer-to-peer best practice sharing and collaboration. These virtual platforms act as single sources of truth for organizations looking to convene, inform, and support their members.
We are a collection of strategists, data scientists, public health professionals, software developers, entrepreneurs, artists, marketers, & human-centered designers. We enjoy living at the center of design thinking, innovation, community engagement, and mixed-methods research. This equips us as a team to bring creativity, adaptability, and efficacy to the table for our clients.
For years we have been driven by a mission to integrate
human-centered design methodology into the healthcare space.
With a specific focus on improving maternal health outcomes across the country, we help hospitals, health systems, and associations alike to champion patient and community voices, convene stakeholders across the entire care continuum, and translate data to action. We know firsthand from our experience in this field that progress must be thoughtful, but it doesn’t have to be slow.
Do Tank uses a published framework to integrate human-centered design methodology into the healthcare sector, navigating change management and quality improvement in a thoughtful and effective manner. Our three-phase framework, dubbed “Do-Levels,” is a 10-step innovation roadmap that moves from strategic alignment to scalable impact. It begins by establishing a “Burning Platform” for organizational vision, followed by three core phases: Opportunity Exploration to define evidence-based problems, Concept Development to prototype and test solutions, and Value Creation to pilot and sustain the final product.
The process ensures that innovations are grounded in data and successfully integrated into routine practice rather than stalling at the pilot stage.
Learn more about our past maternal health projects with partners across the country.
We believe our ability to facilitate conversations that inform real strategies for improving diversity, and health outcomes, is the best way our team can contribute to addressing systematic disparities in healthcare.
We apply tried and tested principles of high reliability organizations to your healthcare organization to align teams on a process to minimize harm.
We have developed a high-touch process to identify the pain points for clinicians in your organization, build a plan to eliminate those pain points, and execute on that plan.
We believe our ability to facilitate conversations that inform real strategies for improving diversity, and health outcomes, is the best way our team can contribute to addressing systematic disparities in healthcare.
We apply tried and tested principles of high reliability organizations to your healthcare organization to align teams on a process to minimize harm.
We have developed a high-touch process to identify the pain points for clinicians in your organization, build a plan to eliminate those pain points, and execute on that plan.
We believe our ability to facilitate conversations that inform real strategies for improving diversity, and health outcomes, is the best way our team can contribute to addressing systematic disparities in healthcare.
We apply tried and tested principles of high reliability organizations to your healthcare organization to align teams on a process to minimize harm.
We believe our ability to facilitate conversations that inform real strategies for improving diversity, and health outcomes, is the best way our team can contribute to addressing systematic disparities in healthcare.
Yes! We love playing the role of subcontractor and “hero-maker”. Our team is adept at delivering for state and federal grants (CMS, CDC, etc.). We know you have deliverables and deadlines to meet and we are here to partner with you to do so on any scale. We have partnered with state associations, the AHA, and QIOs on varying lengths of terms, sometimes for years and sometimes for just a few months or one-off engagements.
Your organization and members will be up-skilled in human-centered design techniques. We will de-silo communication. We will get your partners to think differently. We will challenge them, we will be thought partners with them, and through it all, we will have fun! Most importantly, we will get things done. We will set clear objectives at the onset of our engagement, and we will work together with you to execute them in a timely, professional, and quality manner.
We are eager to work on any project tackling maternal health and have expertise in a range of maternal health topics. Whatever your specific RHTP goals may be – whether it’s building maternal health digital hubs, enhancing workforce training, boots-on-the-ground community research, developing an app for mothers, or anything else – our team has the experts, capacity, and drive to create value and get you to your desired outcomes.
Each project and each budget we curate is bespoke. It is based on the hours of our team on the programming, visual, and digital fronts to create and deliver the work. We value openness and transparency around cost and always encourage having a conversation with us so we can figure out what we can deliver for you within the budget you are operating in.
To learn more about our work with maternal health leaders across the country, or to ideate around how to best leverage your state’s RHTP and other funding to improve maternity care outcomes, contact us below. We would love to chat!
Adam Kohlrus, BS, MS, CPHQ, CPPS is an experienced healthcare consultant and business. He has worked for more than a decade with hospitals on issues such as readmissions, hospital acquired conditions, patient safety, population health and health equity. In leading state and federally funded quality improvement grants for the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, Adam has experienced the impact design thinking inputs can have in traditional healthcare settings.
Adam also served in the Peace Corps as a Community Health volunteer in both Swaziland, Africa and Guyana, South America before working at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, DC.
Experience
Do Tank, LLC. (2022 – present)
Partner and Chief Health Strategist
Illinois Health and Hospital Association
Assistant Vice President Quality, Safety and Health Policy (2018-2022)
Director – Performance Improvement (2014-2017)
Manager – Performance Improvement (2012-2014)
United States Peace Corps – Swaziland, Guyana and Washington D.C
Peace Corp Fellow (2010-2012)
Peace Corp Response Volunteer (2009)
Peace Corp FOIA Officer (2008-2009)
Peace Corps Volunteer (2006-2008)
Education
MS, Health Sciences with a concentration in Public Health, Western Illinois University (2013)
BS, Social Psychology; Minor in Peace Studies Loyola University (2006)
Keynote Speaker Roles
Pennsylvania Hospital Association Annual Summit (2024)
Colorado Hospital Association Annual Summit (2023)
Missouri Hospital Association Annual Quality Forum (2023)
Illinois Health and Hospital Association Quality Summit (multiple years)
Rise Health Population Health Summit (multiple years)
IHA Health Equity Action Day (2020)
Certifications
Certified Professional in Patient Safety (2014)
Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (2014)
Skills
Quality Improvement
Executive Facilitation
Innovation & Strategy
Human Centered Design
Performance Management
Background
Lives in Springfield, IL, USA
Retired Peace Corps Volunteer
Soccer and Basketball Coach
Father of two
Through his work abroad and domestically, Adam has demonstrated proficiencies in quality improvement, community development, project management, curriculum development, and data analytics.
Industries
Healthcare
Community Development
International Development
Public Health
Alex is a human-centered designer at Do Tank, with a background in visual design.Alex formerly honed her design skills in higher education, guiding university students through the design research process, and working on corporately sponsored innovation consulting projects. At Do Tank Alex has integrated human-centered design into healthcare projects, assisting in designing and facilitating workshops, conducting design research, and collaborating with visual and digital designers.
She is particularly interested in the opportunities for innovation and the application of human-centered design in healthcare, and is a passionate believer in health equity and the power of human-centered work to positively affect health outcomes.
SSM Health (2025–2026)
Patient & Provider Journey Mapping
Co-designed & co-facilitated an in-person workshop focusing on inpatient and outpatient clinical staff’s experience providing antenatal, labor & delivery, and postnatal care. Providers, nurses, managers, directors, and community health workers were asked to identify gaps and challenges. Presently in the design process for a companion patient experience journey mapping workshop to take place by May 2026.
Racial Health Equity Progress Report (2022–2025)
National Learning Collaboratives
Supported the Racial Health Equity Progress Report team by designing and coordinating programming, including four national learning collaboratives meant to translate progress report results into tangible action plans. Teams from organizations across the nation reflected on their results, focus on a specific topic area where improvements can be made, created an action plan, and documented commitments and action steps to serve as a blueprint for the path ahead.
City of Highland Park (2024–2025)
Feedback Collection for the Place of Remembrance
Assisted in the collecting community feedback to inform the “Place of Remembrance” location selection for the city of Highland Park to commemorate the lives lost in the July 4th, 2022 mass shooting. Designed and disseminated a community survey, facilitated 1-1 interviews & focus groups, and presented findings and recommendations to city council.
VPQHC (2025)
Suicide Care Strategic Plan Research
Lead a research phase to prepare VPQHC to develop their suicide care-specific strategic plan. Wrote discussion guides, facilitated focus groups and subject matter expert interviews on the topic of suicide care, current strengths and challenges in VT, and industry best practices. Compiled insights into a digestible summaries to share with VPQHC.
Skills
Background
Industries
Shantha is a Health Equity and Strategy Consultant at Do Tank with a background in public and global health. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University, where she studied Global Health, Psychology, and Data Science, and completed a comparative public and mental health abroad program in Belgrade, Serbia and Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina.
Shantha is passionate about implementing the human centered design process in the healthcare industry and specifically in maternal health work. Since joining Do Tank in 2023, Shantha has worked on maternal health initiatives across the country – from Los Angeles to Rural Missouri, focusing on access to quality care and maternal health equity.
HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND COMMUNITIES LIFTING COMMUNITIES (2023-2025)
Organizational Birth Equity Assessment
Worked closely with maternal health partners in Los Angeles and the surrounding counties to develop and prototype an Organizational Birth Equity Assessment and corresponding programming suite.
Maternal Health Strategic Planning & Design Sessions
Designed and facilitated programming around maternal health strategy for multiple strategy and design sessions both virtually and in-person with the Communities Lifting Communities team.
MISSOURI PERINATAL QUALITY COLLABORATIVE (2024)
2024 Missouri Community Forums Report on Maternal Rural Health Care
Designed programming and conducted in-person community-based research in four of the largest maternity care deserts in Missouri. Collected more than 1700 data points from maternity care patients, providers, and administrators across the state, culminating in 4 regional data reports and a statewide report, the 2024 Missouri Community Forums Report on Maternal Health Care, which has been disseminated to hundreds of stakeholders across the state.
RACIAL HEALTH EQUITY PROGRESS REPORT (2023–2025)
National Learning Collaboratives
Supported the creation and delivery of programming around the Racial Health Equity Progress. Monitored user’s progress and disseminated data analytics to organizations upon completion of the Progress Report. Supported various administrative tasks in preparation for and leading up to learning collaboratives, including design of programming and email communications.
Peer-to-Peer Engagement
Conducted interviews, wrote case studies, and managed the development of a peer-to-peer engagement on the Racial Health Equity Digital Hub where the Progress Report is hosted.
SKILLS
BACKGROUND
INDUSTRIES
Sophia is a maternal-fetal health strategist with a background in maternal & public health. She earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University where she studied human biology, community health, and prevention research.
Sophia is particularly interested in reproductive health equity and improving outcomes across the course of pregnancy. She prioritizes the human-centered approach in the problem-solving process and is passionate about designing care solutions that integrate as many stakeholders as possible.
SSM HEALTH (2025-2026)
Maternal-Fetal Health Strategist
Co-designed & co-facilitated an in-person journey mapping workshop to capture the current state of care across pregnancy phases and clinical facility types; Customized human-centered design canvases to facilitate discussion, ideation, and collaboration across and within personnel groups; Analyzed & disseminated workshop findings & feedback for understanding across a variety of audiences
Missouri Collaboration for Clinical-Community Integration [MOC3] (2025-2026)
Maternal-Fetal Health Strategist
Co-facilitated virtual clinical-community integration focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews with participating health systems; designed and developed a customized maternal health integrated care model in collaboration with “maternal health home” pilot sites across Missouri; analyzed mixed methods data & disseminated care model framework for broader implementation across stakeholders
Missouri Perinatal Quality Collaborative [MOPQC] (2025-2026)
Maternal-Fetal Health Strategist
Organized, analyzed, and presented key findings & member takeaways from the Maternal Health Task Force’s (MHTF, formerly MC-LAN) 2025 Annual Mini Summit into actionable deliverables, strategic planning, and organizational “next steps” for collaboration and integration
Stanford University – Evaluation Sciences Unit [ESU] (2022-2024)
Graduate Research Associate
Designed, implemented, assessed, & disseminated a retrospective cohort study evaluating the clinical and operational impact of the Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic (EPAC) care model on patients.
Assessed patient eligibility for participation in study via thorough evaluation of patient medical charts & clinician notes; Conducted an in-depth literature review across related topics, including theoretical frameworks, early pregnancy loss, maternal health care models, & care access utilization; Facilitated & conducted virtual patient interviews in collaboration with a cross-discipline research team; Analyzed qualitative & quantitative data through legal and sociocultural lenses for peer review and dissemination in the journal Contraception (Amaya et al, 2024)
SKILLS
BACKGROUND
INDUSTRIES
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