Making It (Healthcare Reform) Understandable

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand, in Victory for Obama

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:55:44 -0400

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand, in Victory for Obama :

From the New York Times article about the Supreme Court decision:

Supreme Court Lets Health Law Largely Stand, in Victory for Obama

The Supreme Court on Thursday largely let stand President Obama’s health care overhaul, in a striking victory for the president and Congressional Democrats, with the chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., affirming the central legislative pillar of Mr. Obama’s term.

Final project for Making It Understandable: something like 700’...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:36:39 -0500

Final project for Making It Understandable: something like 700’ of so-called fluorescent red flagging tape, on the south side of Westminster over I-95, in Providence RI. I designed three of these and installed just this one, but it’d be great to have them in lots more places. I was worried about someone stopping me, but I got nothing but positive sentiments from people crossing the bridge, from people yelling “THAT LOOKS GREAT!” out of their car windows to a man who came up to me to talk about the reform to a cyclist who said I made his day.

-Victoria Rushton

Counting the Rhode Island Uninsured Many people have...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:38:35 -0500

Counting the Rhode Island Uninsured

Many people have misconceptions about who the uninsured in Rhode Island are. This poster translates survey data of the uninsured into a visual language to better show who they are. With healthcare reform, 54% of the RI uninsured will get health insurance expansions in Medicaid, government subsidies for private insurance, and by other means as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

-Emily

Cartoon that helps illustrate Affordable Care Act -Daniel Giuditta

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:59:18 -0500

Cartoon that helps illustrate Affordable Care Act -Daniel Giuditta

PocketPatient is an imagined future app for patient-centered...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:52:01 -0500

PocketPatient is an imagined future app for patient-centered healthcare wherein patients would be able to keep track of their health, health insurance, health care costs, and changes in the Affordable Care Act.

Its features include a personal health dashboard with all the patient’s up-to-date medical information on it, an exam/screening/medication reminder, an overview of the patient’s heath care plan and benefits, a copay estimator, a symptoms checker, and easy access to a personal list of health care providers.

— Tabitha Yong

Total Health Care Costs Fall When Poor Are Provided Insurance: Study

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:11:43 -0500

Total Health Care Costs Fall When Poor Are Provided Insurance: Study

Coverage, Think of It As Hats. In 2014, the Health Insurance...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:41:37 -0500

Coverage, Think of It As Hats.

In 2014, the Health Insurance Exchange is coming to Rhode Island. Are you ready? If you are like the majority of Rhode Island residents, probably not. Upon researching the Health Insurance Exchange, I found that information about the Exchange was either worded in a complex, technical manner or extremely vague. I needed to find an easier way to communicate this health care entity so it can be easily understood by the people of Rhode Island.

The Health Insurance Exchange will be an online marketplace where individuals and small businesses can easily compare and purchase insurance plans. Because the appearance of the Exchange in undecided at the moment, I decided to take full advantage of this and represent the Exchange by knitted hats.

Each knitted hat represents an insurance plan for a different type of person. The more elaborate hats represent plans with more coverage and the simpler hats represent the more basic coverage plans. To start the health care discussion, each hat would be accompanied by an informational booklet that explains important facts about the Health Insurance Exchange and also a timeline explaining key events in health care reform. The hat owner has the opportunity to create their own knitted hat by either joining a knitting club or starting their own with friends and family. Here, the discussion about health care starts and the public can become more informed about these important changes.

-Alaina Nuehring {anuehrin@risd.edu}

Women’s Preventive Services and Religious Institutions

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:41:00 -0500

Women’s Preventive Services and Religious Institutions:

-Aimee

Steward backs bill to lift 3-year wait on RI hospital purchases

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:56:05 -0500

by Karen M. Cheung, 2/8/12, for Fierce Healthcare

During RI NPR journalist Megan Hall’s visit to class, she told us about the potential purchase of Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket, RI by Steward Health Care System. To read about the situation in greater detail, you can find the article here.

Landmark Medical Center- photo from www.providencejournal.com

-Hannah

Sherpaa

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:38:00 -0500

A newly launched company dedicated to making care more streamlined and efficient. Right now they’re working exclusively with tumblr employees, but other NYC-based companies will be able to sign up soon.

“We want to take all the confusion out of healthcare and make it simple for you. We believe in real relationships with real humans, and we like to keep things local. We also love how the internet makes life easier. So we combined everything we love and started Sherpaa—because doctors + communication + your neighborhood + the internet just makes sense.”

See for yourself here.

-Victoria

New York City Defends Health Ads That Frighten the Viewer

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:07:00 -0500

New York Times article. I couldn’t help but remember the startling ads that Aimee showed us in class, and now you do too.

-Victoria

Noma Bar: Negative Space

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:02:00 -0500

Awesome work with simple forms and negative space that have powerful messages within.

See more @ http://www.dutchuncle.co.uk/illustrators/noma-bar/portfolios/negative-space

-Brett

Technology Helps Reduce Prescription Error

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:01:00 -0500

Technology Helps Reduce Prescription Error:

An article written by Ted Burnham was posted on NPR’s health blog describing how technology reduces errors while writing prescriptions. One study showed that switching from pen and paper to technology reduced prescription error by 60%.

-Alaina Nuehring

Mobile Healthcare

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:24:33 -0500

Mobile Healthcare

Health 3.0 by Washington Health Foundation about patient centered healthcare

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:54:35 -0500

Health 3.0 by Washington Health Foundation about patient centered healthcare

Smart Design's Dave Cronin Talks Home Healthcare Design

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:43:00 -0500

Smart Design's Dave Cronin Talks Home Healthcare Design :

“INSTEAD OF RESEMBLING OUTMODED PCS, HOME-HEALTH-CARE TECHNOLOGY SHOULD LOOK AND FEEL LIKE THE OTHER DEVICES THAT SURROUND US.”

-Jennifer Wibowo

Psychology of Healthcare Reform

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:36:00 -0500

Psychology of Healthcare Reform:

I really liked this post. It’s specifically about the reform and why it is so hard to get America to accept it, as evidenced by the huge controversial debate/issues flying around the reform right now.

List of Blog Posts on Designing in Healthcare from frog

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:34:52 -0500

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/search/node/healthcareA ton of posts to search/read through about design/impact of design in healthcare. They are all pretty good and informative and have our perspective as designers.

-Jennifer Wibowo

This book is about scale of objects in the universe- each page...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:24:27 -0500

This book is about scale of objects in the universe- each page is a real image of an object or an image representing a property of an object. These images range from the smallest seen objects in the universe to the largest.

Although this book might not necessarily be about displaying information, I thought that the way it was visually organized was so fundamental to the nature of the book that it was worth sharing. The first page is especially interesting as a display of information- it is a sequence of images from ten different scales, ranging from 10 ^ -13th meters to 10 ^ 25th meters. Each image is really beautiful, and they each reference each other in a remarkable way, even though some are infinitely smaller or larger than others. This page opens to reveal an info-graphic explaining what natural objects can be found at each scale. Attached are images of both.

We could use this book to better understand how to represent what seem to be entirely different objects or concepts along one smooth continuum to create something beautiful.

This is a really interesting graphic about sickness...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:09:25 -0500

This is a really interesting graphic about sickness prevention and cost. At first, I thought this graphic might be an imitation of older, “tree graphs” that were discussed in the first book I read, Understanding Complexity. As I kept reading it though, it seemed to be authentic- they talk about spotted fever and malaria in areas North America as well as leper colonies and narcotic farms. Still, this graphic is a really useful and intriguing way to present information on one giant branch of healthcare: prevention.

This graphic can help us as a class to compare our efforts to those in the past as well as contrast them and learn from their mistakes.