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Equitable Healthcare Lab Director Kim Erwin featured in Crain’s

ID Faculty Member Discusses UChicago Medicine Hospital at Home Project

October 22, 2024

Kim Erwin resting arm on the exterior wall of the Kaplan Institute

Jon Asplund of Crain’s Chicago Business interviewed Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Design Methods Kim Erwin about her Equitable Healthcare Lab‘s Hospital at Home initiative with UChicago Medicine.

The article, “How Illinois Tech Helped  Map Out UChicago Medicine’s Hospital at Home Initiative,” describes the 10-month process, which can be glimpsed through extensive systems maps views on display now in the lab space at the Institute of Design.

UChicago Medicine Hospital at Home Service Blueprint

“Erwin’s lab space is taken up by a chart that details what each health care professional needs to accomplish and a corresponding message or responsibility for the patient or family member,” Jon Asplund writes.

The process was formidable...12-foot-long flowcharts diagram every step providers, and patients, need to take to bring the inpatient experience to the home setting.
—Jon Asplund in Crain's HealthPulse

Kim Erwin and Dr. Cheng-Kai Kao, who runs Hospital at Home services at UChicago, traveled to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Home Care Medicine in Phoenix recently to report on this process to the Hospital At Home Users Group, a collaborative group of Hospital at Home programs.

Kim is also a Visiting Scholar at UChicago Medicine, where the Equitable Healthcare Lab has ongoing collaborations. The Hospital at Home project was funded by UChicago Medicine’s Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation (HDSI) through a multi-year partnership initiated by Center Director Sharon Markman.

But UChicago Medicine isn’t the only healthcare system integrating design and designers.

How can healthcare function without design?
—Kim Erwin

Earlier this year, the Equitable Healthcare Lab released a landmark report, The Role of Design in US Health Systems.

The report describes the scope and scale of design’s influence on care delivery through interviews with 48 design leaders and practitioners in 27 US health systems, including Kaiser Permanente, the Mayo Clinic, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

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