Managing multiple chronic conditions, studying social determinants of health, and providing community-driven care will be pillars of the new PROMOTE research center to be launched at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON). Funded through a National Institutes of Health P30 grant, the center will advance science in supporting patients with multiple chronic conditions and provide an opportunity for researchers to drive culture change and develop sustainable health care initiatives through innovative research design.
The Center (Promoting Resilience in Persons with Multiple Chronic Conditions) will be founded on leading a unique shift in the current paradigm of disease-specific models of care to person-centered, community-focused methods that address various factors affecting health including functional limitations, family caregivers’ perspectives, poverty, housing, access to food, or traumatic life events.
“With two out of three adults in the U.S. experiencing multiple chronic conditions, the need for relevant research and scalable programs is urgent,” says Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN, center director and JHSON endowed professor for health equity and social justice. “Our center takes a holistic view of the person, their environment, and their goals. The center will prepare clinician-researchers to design compelling solutions that are relevant to the home, family, social, and financial ecosystems that people live in. We want to change the question from ‘what is the matter?’ to ‘what matters most’ to the patient.”
PROMOTE will use a framework that places heavy emphasis on health resilience and recovery (rather than treatment of individual diseases) and simultaneously influencing factors that increase one’s ability to overcome a health challenge. Through a partnership with the Center for Social Design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), researchers will use human-centered design, which leverages experience and feedback of patients and caregivers themselves to better develop and test ideas. There will also be key stakeholder engagement with policy groups, foundations and industry, as well as people living with multiple chronic conditions.
Drawing on current JHSON faculty expertise, other center directors will include Hae-Ra Han, PhD, RN, FAAN, Cheryl Dennison Himmelfarb, PhD, RN, ANP, FAAN, FAHA, FPCNA, Patricia Davidson, PhD, MEd, RN, FAAN, Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Nancy Perrin, PhD, who have made significant contributions to intervention design and research with people with multiple chronic conditions.
“Establishing this center will lead to a tremendous step forward in the way health care professionals respond to and design future interventions to the most pressing health issues,” says Davidson, also dean of JHSON. “It’s not just a leadership opportunity for our school, but a transformational advancement for the whole of health care.”
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Located in Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing is a globally-recognized leader in nursing education, research and practice and ranks No. 1 nationally among graduate schools of nursing and No. 2 for DNP programs in the U.S. News & World Report 2019 rankings. In addition, the school is ranked by QS World University as the No. 3 nursing school in the world and is No.1 by College Choice for its master’s program. For more information, visit www.nursing.jhu.edu.
The MICA Center for Social Design is dedicated to demonstrating and promoting the value of design in advancing equity and social justice, and to inspiring and preparing the next generation of creative changemakers. We utilize a human-centered and collaborative process to understand and define social problems, identify opportunities and generate ideas, and make tools that support positive change. For more information, visit www.micasocialdesign.com.
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