The Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation (HDSI) is delighted to announce that Kim Erwin, MDes, Associate Professor of Practice of Healthcare Design at the IIT Institute of Design (Illinois Tech) has been named visiting scholar in Human-Centered Design in HDSI at the University of Chicago Medicine. This unique engagement is optimized to accelerate the understanding of human-centered healthcare design; to mentor staff, trainees and faculty; and to build capacity in the application of human-centered design (HCD) and design methods to improve health system operations, patient safety, patient outcomes, and patient care delivery.
Human-centered design is a problem-solving methodology that integrates human needs, behaviors and goals into all phases of its development process. The IIT Institute of Design is one of the pioneers of HCD, which according to ISO standards, “enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.”
Erwin brings a wealth of experience and new perspectives to high-priority health system projects, including the design of the Hospital @ Home initiative, health system-wide advance care planning, and patient, staff and provider interactions. She will partner with operational teams to introduce and expand design methods and to support innovation and discovery in their daily routine. Erwin will help redesign the HDSI Innovation Grant (next cycle deadline is April) to incorporate human-centered design into submissions. A summer HCD Challenge will be launched to garner ideas from frontline providers and staff throughout the health system to identify new ways to look at longstanding challenges. Institute of Design students will also be incorporated into this engagement.
Erwin is a design strategist with expertise in applying human-centered design to healthcare’s frontline problems. Her work aligns evidence-based medical interventions with human behavior and real-world settings to accelerate adoption by patients, trainees and clinical staff. She has developed, piloted and evaluated patient-centered solutions in diverse care settings (outpatient, inpatient, emergency department) and diverse patient populations (African-American, LatinX, Navajo, veterans, adults, children). She has over nine years of funded healthcare research. In addition to running the Institute of Design’s Equitable Healthcare Initiative, Erwin is the only designer to be a standing member of a scientific review panel for the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and is working with the National Academy of Medicine to develop a new model for measuring community engagement.
Please join us in welcoming Kim to HDSI and UCM.