Beginning in August 2020, the University of Texas at Austin will offer a master's degree in Design in Health, the first of its kind in the U.S., according to a Dec. 10 news release.
The degree will be a joint offering of the School of Design and Creative Technologies and the Design Institute for Health, the latter of which is housed within the university's Dell Medical School. The one-year program will be led by experts in the fields of human-centered and healthcare design, who will foster collaboration between medical and design students to solve health-related challenges.
"This new breed of health leaders will wield a creative, problem-solving mindset and design skills that enable them to not only see the places where the health system is broken, but also to take action to fix it," said Stacey Chang, executive director of the Design Institute for Health. "When they put their design skills to work, the health system of the future will put people first. Our healthcare system is intrinsically flawed, and we need a new generation of care providers and design thinkers who can creatively solve healthcare's most wicked problems from the inside."
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