Academy for Revolutionary Creativity in Health (ARCH)

Contact

Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel

arch@jefferson.edu

Programs

ARCH offers a range of customized educational engagements across topics and in a format that suits your needs. We deliver virtual and in-person experiences ranging from one-hour workshops to intensive weekly courses running over many weeks. Our educational experiences can be crafted to offer CME/CE credits. Contact us to discuss the perfect fit for you or your team.

Experts at Jefferson have long been exploring how human creativity, collaboration across disciplines, ethics and empathy can shape the future of healthcare. Here is a taste of the experiences we’ve been bringing to our students, and the expertise we can bring to you!

Easter Seals Child Mobility Project: This project was a collaboration between Easter Seals and Jefferson industrial design, occupational therapy, and physical therapy programs. It involved extensive modifications of motorized “bumper cars” to make them more suitable for use in therapy sessions with children with disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, to improve coordination, reaction time, and cognitive ability. The modifications include backrest extensions, the addition of a footrest, alternative joystick shapes, and new head and hand buttons to initiate movement.
Opioid Use Disorder Patient Journey Map: Students and faculty experts in health communication design, user experience design, and visual communication design collaborated with a team of Jefferson researchers, physicians and certified recovery specialists to develop a map that visualizes the patient experience navigating the opioid treatment landscape in Philadelphia. The work focused on using information design principles to visualize treatment paths based on three distinct personas with unique journeys. This collaboration is part of a larger project which aims to (1) produce foundational research that can fill knowledge gaps about the current treatment system, and (2) yield practical policy and practice recommendations to inform efforts to address the opioids crisis and reduce overdose deaths in the City of Philadelphia.
Stress and the Built Environment in Urban Emergency Department Waiting Rooms: Although functional needs should be a priority in the design of emergency department waiting areas, many aspects of these practical decisions add stress to the patients and caregivers using these spaces. Funded by a Jefferson Smart and Healthy Cities grant, faculty from psychology and interior design collaborated with health science and clinical faculty to explore how considerations related to physical space, such as color, opportunities for diversion, and incorporation of nature, can reduce the stress of patients, caregivers, and staff.
Adjustable Electronic Reacher: Industrial design master’s and occupational therapy doctorate students collaborated with members of the International FOP (Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva) Association to develop this adjustable reacher for people with severe movement restrictions. It offers a powerful grip, controlled by a thumbwheel through an on-board computer, and allows users to freely adjust the length and angle to accommodate their posture and movements. It features an arm support to reduce strain on the user’s wrist and separates into parts so it can travel with the user.
Environmental Fabrics and Breathing Wall System: Faculty and students from architecture, biology, and textile engineering collaborated to develop a novel breathing wall system. This system uses an antimicrobial treatment designed to purify air by targeting microbes, mold, and bacteria. Initial installations on the Jefferson campus demonstrated that the system effectively cleansed the air and helped reduce allergy symptoms. Encouraged by these results, the system was subsequently installed in selected rooms at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital, where it continued to show significant reductions in airborne mold, bacteria, and microbes.

Explore ARCH Offerings

ARCH brings together expertise from many disciplines across business, design, engineering, humanities and the social sciences. The possibilities for collaboration are tremendous! Answer any of the questions below by clicking on an accordion to help match your interests with some of our exciting individual workshop topics.