Julie Elliott

Associate Professor of Practice, Lsu College of Art and Design, School of Interior Design @Kwalu

Baton Rouge, LA, US

Recruited to join the faculty at Louisiana State University School of Interior Design to assist in building a graduate program focused on Health and Wellbeing. Our school’s mission goes beyond healthcare spaces and accommodations, creating spaces that enable and improve the human condition – bringing out the best of who we are, and providing a lasting and positive impact on outcomes. Providing comfort through purposeful design.During the spring 2019 semester, our studio researched and integrated LEAN and Evidence-Based Design (EBD) best practices for outpatient facilities. Students had the opportunity to shadow one of the primary care teams at Ochsner’s newly opened High Grove Medical Complex, conducting observations on the 8 healthcare flows: flow of patients, flow of families, flow of staff, flow of medications, flow of information, flow of supplies, flow of equipment.After analyzing the research and data, the students built an exam room mock-up that incorporated EBD best practices.A Healthcare Innovation Seminar offered by the School of Interior Design in spring 2019 is the first of its kind, joining together interdisciplinary scholars to combine expertise to study healthcare design from multiple lenses. Students of numerous disciplines, including graduate and undergraduate students in the areas of interior design, landscape architecture, business administration, kinesiology, biology, marketing, and engineering, participated in the first semester in the spring of 2019. Course instructors include experts in architecture, health and community development, and more. The research-based course aims to educate about innovations in the healthcare arena from numerous vantage points, to arrive at a more developed perspective for all students. The course focuses on the intersection of the built environment, technology, biology, and looks to the future of healthcare, in terms of design and overall changing trends