Making It (Healthcare Reform) Understandable

Our January 2012 course at the Rhode Island School of Design asks the questions, “How can complex public policy such as the Healthcare Reform Act be communicated to the public? How can we help citizens inform themselves so that they can make informed assessments and judgments?” Bringing their diverse visual and conceptual skills, students will experiment with effective ways of translating a written legislative document into effective visual and graphic design that makes the information clear, accessible and understandable. Images from our class are here. Course designed and taught by Lindsay Kinkade

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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.

[victoriaalissia]

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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

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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

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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

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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 {[email protected]}

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-Aimee

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

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

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Sherpaa

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

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New York City Defends Health Ads That Frighten the Viewer

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

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Noma Bar: Negative Space

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

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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

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

-Jennifer Wibowo 

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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.