Physician-innovators at Carle Illinois College of Medicine are emerging leaders in creating new health care solutions that improve patient outcomes and advance medicine. Their innovations will be used by people with a wide range of physical abilities, from patients who are aging or dealing with physical challenges to health care workers of all shapes and sizes.

Through resources, expertise, and user-centric input available at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (dis)Ability Design Studio, CI MED’s problem-solvers can collaborate with patients and other users on sustainable solutions that meet human needs. We talked with CI MED Health Innovation Professor and Studio Director Deana McDonagh about how the studio supports creating healthy solutions and spaces for all.

What is the guiding principle behind your work at the
(dis)Ability Design Studio?

The guiding principle is that people are 'whole' just as they are. By focusing on diverse abilities, we can develop products, services, and environments that enhance, empower, and meet real needs beyond the typical consumer. Designing for existing, emerging, and unforeseeable needs provides a design strategy that is iterative and impactful.

How can the work at the (dis)Ability Design Studio advance health care in general?

Expanding our understanding of others (human-centered design) enables empathic, patient-inspired innovation, identifying design opportunities that may be currently overlooked. Experiencing the experience of your patient will support more effective personal communication and interaction.

How can CI MED students contribute to the work of advancing design that works for everyone?

The Studio brings together a community of experts with diverse backgrounds, education, and lived experience in the pursuit of enhancing quality of life. Students can interact with the Studio to support their project work and become engaged in clinician-driven projects.

How can CI MED students work on solutions that remove barriers for people with disabilities who are working in or entering the medical professions?

Experiencing the diverse experience themselves. Intellectually understanding disabilities is the start of the process.

You [may] have an idea of what something is going feel like, but it is an academic understanding.  Many people imagine someone else’s experience, but empathic modeling provides the opportunity for more in-depth understanding (felt experience).

For example, we can all imagine what growing old is like, but not until you are at that stage of your life can you really fully understand.

Integrating empathic design into medical education involves embedding patient-centered innovation methodologies throughout the training of future physicians. This approach shifts the educational paradigm from a solely biomedical focus to one that actively incorporates the human experience of illness, care, and healing into problem-solving and clinical reasoning.

The Studio can provide a human-centered empathic design perspective on projects for both students and faculty/clinicians.

As the population in the U.S. ages, how will hospitals and other health care institutions need to redesign their spaces to be more workable for everyone?

Empathic health care architecture, empathically designed services, and welcoming experiences for family members. That is a profound challenge that needs the medical community to engage with. 

Editor’s note: The (dis)Ability Design Studio is housed at the Beckman Institute. Deana McDonagh is a professor of Industrial Design at the Illinois School of Art and Design. Studio Associate Director Susann Heft Sears oversees the Beckwith Residential Community which is dedicated to accommodating students with severe physical disabilities and to help you transition to independent living. Associate Director Adam Bleakney (pictured above) is the founder of the Human Performance and Mobility Maker Lab, an interdisciplinary lab where students with and without disabilities collaborate to design and develop assistive technology.

To explore collaborations with the studio, contact them here.