improving asthma outcomes for kids by connecting clinical approaches to their lived realities at home
What we did:
As a graduate teaching intern, I co-taught a semester-long studio course where design students worked collaboratively with pediatric asthma patients, their primary caregivers, physicians, social workers, and respiratory therapists to explore how to create asthma action plans and support systems that enable smoother and safer care at home.
What happened next:
Three prototypes from our design process advanced to the testing phase in a pediatric asthma clinic. You can read more about this in a peer-reviewed article in Public Health, as a case study in Health Design Thinking, and on the MICA Center for Social Design website.
Why it matters:
Too often, a clinical encounter passes in a flash – and a patient takes home a list of instructions that are hard to understand, and don’t fit into their lives. While medical professionals often label patients as “non-compliant” or “non-adherent,” many patients aren’t set up for success in the first place. By creating a more vivid shared understanding of a child’s daily life at home, care teams can provide tailored recommendations and support to keep a child’s asthma under control.
Year: 2018
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
My role: facilitator, coaching and feedback, writing, partnership management, IRB approval
Collaborators:
MICA Center for Social Design: Franki Abraham, Katie Mancher, Delaney Todd, Kimmy Tsai, Amanda Velez-Cortes, Maddie Wolf, Christina Yoo, and Becky Slogeris (faculty lead)
Johns Hopkins Children's Hospital: Mandeep Jassal, Hilary Heslep, Christy Sadreameli, Helen Hughes, Arlene Butz, Cassie Lewis-Land, Kate Bosley