Kim Erwin, MDes
Co-director, Program for Healthcare Delivery Design; Research Professor
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
Kim Erwin, MDes, is co-director of the program for Healthcare Delivery Design in the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Health Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a research professor at the UIC School of Design.
Erwin applies design methods to align evidence-based medical interventions with human behavior to accelerate adoption by patients and clinical staff. UIC’s Healthcare Delivery Design program targets care redesign through merging principles and methods of human-centered design with the science of medical research.
Previously, Erwin served as an associate professor at the IIT Institute of Design and director of its Center for Collaborative Healthcare Design.
When Talk Isn’t Cheap: Designing cost conversations for high-risk pregnant women and their doctors on Chicago’s South Side
When a doctor outlines a complex treatment plan, many of us would ask—how much is that going to cost? For high-risk pregnant women—even those whose direct healthcare is fully paid by Medicaid—the actual cost of going to 20+ pregnancy appointments can be thousands of dollars.
Doctors increasingly are being asked to include “financial harm” as a consideration in patient care. The Cost of Care Conversation project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, uses a design-led approach to structure and support cost conversations.
Kim Erwin, MDes, of the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), explores experiences of women served by three OB/GYN clinics on Chicago’s South Side and the OB-GYNs, nurses and staff seeking to deliver quality care.
