MISSION
I believe everything we design & create can measurably improve health.
I leverage my expertise in health, design & data analytics to help complex organizations improve their products, places and processes for health. As such, I have become an advocate for Health in All Design and deliberately collaborate across a breadth of academic and private sectors to redesign our entire approach to healthcare delivery.
RESEARCH
Academic Press
safe surgical care for rural communities
Ibrahim AM, Hughes T, Thumma J, Dimick JB. “Association of Hospital Critical Access Status with Surgical Outcomes and Expenditures Among Medicare Beneficiaries.” JAMA. 2016;315(19):2095-2103. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.5618.
Missed warning signs within existing healthcare data
Ibrahim AM, Dimick JB. “Monitoring Medical Devices: Missed Warnings Signs within Existing Data.” JAMA. 2017;318(4):327-328. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.6584
COVID ARCHITECTURE & AIR CHANGES
Allen, JG. Ibrahim, AM, “Indoor Air Changes and Potential Implications for SARS-CoV-2 Transmission.” JAMA. 2021;325(20):2112-2113
Social Vulnerability & Access to Care
Zhang…Ibrahim AM. “Social Vulnerability And Outcomes For Access-Sensitive Surgical Conditions Among Medicare Beneficiaries.” Health Affairs (Millwood). 2022 May;41(5):671-679.
Public Press
Hospital Design after COVID
Ibrahim AM. “What Comes Next? A surgeon’s 3 predictions for the Future of Healthcare Design” Fast Company. April 2020, Available online: https://www.fastcompany.com/90493229/what-comes-next-a-surgeons-3-predictions-for-the-future-of-healthcare-design
Redesigning Network Delivery
Ibrahim AM. Dimick JD. “Redesigning the Delivery of Speciality Care within Newly Formed Hospital Networks” N Engl J Med Catalyst. April 2017, Available online: http://catalyst.nejm.org/redesigning-specialty-care-delivery/
TRaining across sectors
Ibrahim AM. Fleisher L. “Rethinking the Challenges of Healthcare: A Call for Tri-Sector Leaders” N Engl J Med Catalyst. June 2016, Available online: http://catalyst.nejm.org/rethinking-challenges-of-health-care-time-cultivate-more-tri-sector-leaders/
WrITING GUIDE
Ibrahim AM. Dimick JD. “Writing for Impact: How to Prepare a Journal Article” (2017). Download Full PDF Here.
Remainder of publications
Resources
Below are videos and guides I created with colleagues and mentees. Each are free to watch or download.
How to design a hospital
The process of designing a hospital is complex. This guide summarizes the key phases of design identifying the goals of each phase, expected deliverable and possible tools that can be utilized.
WRITING FOR IMPACT
Writing a scientific manuscript is a skill taking years to perfect. This guide builds on advice passed along by mentors and routinely taught in my research group.
Developing Early Career Clinician Scientists
Developing early-career clinician-scientists has three distinct phases that each require tailored strategies. This download was originally created for the Association of Academic Surgery and is free to download here. While focused on surgeon-scientists, several of the principles are broadly transferable beyond surgery and beyond medicine.
Visual AbstrACT PRIMER
The visual abstract is an effective strategy to disseminate scientific research now adopted by >100 journals and institutions around the world. The primer provides an overview of its history, how to create one, and examples how it is being used.
Current WORK
My work is currently supported by grant funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (R01, R18), the National Institutes for Health (R01), the US Department of Veteran Affairs and multiple private foundations. I aim to redesign healthcare delivery at three scales: the actually hospital building, regional networks of hospitals and finally neighborhoods. At each scale, I apply design principles and evaluate them quantitatively with the tools of health services research.
Redesigning Network Delivery of Healthcare
As the trend toward hospital mergers and consolidations continues, newly forming health care networks need to take advantage of their accumulated assets by implementing a redesign of service lines and process of care. This is both a design and health services research challenge.
Health in All Design
What if everything we build & design was done with Health as a Priority? Much like policy makers adopted, “Health in All Policies” , what if architecture, planning and design communities systematically committed to “Health in All Design?” Although my work in architecture traditionally focused on healthcare facilities, clients are increasingly asking, “how can we make schools, stadiums, officer spaces, and housing healthier?” Follow the full Tweetorial outlined here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/health-all-design-andrew-m-ibrahim-md-msc/
The Health and Design Fellowship is designed to train Architects and Planners with the robust methods and health services research with the goal of making “Health a priority in everything we design.” More details about the fellowship can be found here.
BIO
Andrew M. Ibrahim MD, MSc is the Maud T. Lane Research Professor of Surgery, Architecture & Urban Planning and Vice Chair for Health Services Research in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He completed his undergraduate and medical degrees both with Honors at Case Western Reserve University with a year of coursework at University College London and The Bartlett School of Architecture. His research at the interface of healthcare delivery, surgery and architecture is supported by >$10million of extramural funding including R01s from AHRQ and the NIH. In 2023, he was appointed to the Board of Directors at Academy Health and the Board of the Center for Health Design.
After serving for six year as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Principal of the global design and architecture firm, HOK, he became the Founding Principal of StudioAMI.
Recent Podcasts & Interviews
Life at the Interface of Health, Architecture and COVID | WIRED
How I Got Here: A Blueprint for the Future of Healthcare | The Exam Room
Health Design 101 w/ Ellen Lupton (Smithsonian Design Museum) | Visible Voices
Designing Healthcare’s Future | Innovation Activist
4 Ways to Design for Equity After COVID | Fast Company
Leveraging Design to Communicate Scientific Research | Cambridge University
Health in all Design (Bon Ku) | The Design Lab