PROJECT NAME:
Reflective Writing for Patients and Providers (approved December 2019)
LOCATION:
Peoria, IL
ORGANIZATION:
Founded in 1877, OSF HealthCare’s Mission is “to serve persons with the greatest care and love in a community that celebrates the gift of life.” OSF provides equal access for all individuals.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The group that received support from Illinois Humanities is an interprofessional team of humanities enthusiasts who form the “HEArt (Humanities, Ethics, and Art) of Healthcare” and get together on a monthly basis to discuss humanities programming, education, and interventions. HEArt of Healthcare programs include a reflective writing program, writing workshops with cancer survivors and medical students, and presentations. Together with the University of Illinois College of Medicine, OSF HealthCare hosted a March 11 talk for 50 internal medicine faculty on findings from the grantees’ study of the impact of bedside reflective writing and the value of humanities in healthcare. All of this is a step toward establishing a formal HEArt of Healthcare center to foster scholarship and infuse health humanities into the clinical setting, forging partnerships with local museums, libraries, and schools to create programs that support wellbeing in the hospital and in the community. However, since the Coronavirus crisis hit, the auditorium where the March talk took place has become the OSF HealthCare Pandemic Digital Response Hub, and a member of the HEArt of Healthcare humanities team is now taking a lead role in a National Organization for Arts in Health creative response to the pandemic.
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