Learning Lounge Sandbox: Designing Resources, Services, and Curriculum to Advance Health Literacy Needs

Dell Medical School, which opened in June 2016, is charting new ground when it comes to developing value-based models of care. The school has made a commitment to improve the health outcomes of the community it serves and to reach beyond traditional health care models to identify and address the social determinants of health. The Design Institute for Health has created a library space, called the learning lounge, in the Health Transformation Building HTB to enable a wide array of new learning opportunities for the population served by the health clinics in the HTB and around the medical campus. Together with Dell Meds Librarian, the Design Institute has brought together consumer health material eg. books and magazines for use in the library space which has a variety of seating, a tablet computer, two 52-inch display screens, indoor and outdoor seating areas, and free pervasive Wi-Fi. During the first year of operation, we would like to focus our program of work at the intersection of health and technology literacy. This library space will be a sandbox in which to develop new health literacy programming including the on-boarding and training of people on mobile health applications, the developing of new ways to communicate health information, and the guiding of people to relevant sources of health information.

Project Details

Organization Name

University of Texas at Austin - Dell Medical School Library

Organization Type
Academic institution
Health sciences library
Project Lead

Imelda Vetter

Location
Texas
Start Date
May 1, 2018
End Date
April 30, 2019
Funding Amount
$40000
Demographics
Health care Provider
Library or Information Professional
Student, College & Post-grad
Blacks/African Americans
Hispanics/Latin Americans
Urban