Center for Humanizing Medicine
Call for Impact Grant Applications 2025-2026
Center for Humanizing Medicine Vision: Each patient is known as a person, understood, respected, treated with dignity, and shown compassion; and each healthcare professional is fulfilled in their work through human connection and relationships.
Center for Humanizing Medicine Mission: To eliminate dehumanization in healthcare, support relationships that benefit patients and clinicians, and share that knowledge with the world through research and training.
Description of Impact Grants.
Impact Grants are intended to support creative projects led by multidisciplinary teams to improve patient experience in our health system. Funds may be used to support a range of initiatives that enhance patient and family comfort, convenience, communication, information and education, or the overall patient experience.
Description of Impact Grant Application Elements
A. Basic Information
- Project Title.
- Patient Population. State Adult/Pediatric and condition.
- Unit and Department of the Project Team.
- Project Lead Info. (Name, credentials, job title, email address, phone number)
- Project Team Info. (For each team member list: Name, credentials, job title, role on project team)
- Impact Grant Project Description (1 sentence).
B. Project Proposal [750 words or less]
- Dehumanizing Problem. Where in a patient’s journey do you see a need for more care, dignity, or connection? Describe the issues that contribute to the problem.
- Approach. Describe your plan to develop and implement the project. Who will be engaged? How will you communicate about the project? Include an estimated timeline.
- Roadblocks. Beyond money, what do you foresee getting in the way of implementing your project? How will you try to address those challenges?
- Evaluation. How will you know it made a difference? How will you measure or reflect on success – big or small?
- Impact. How will this idea help patients feel more human, seen, or supported? Roughly how many people could this impact?
C. Additional Information
- Budget. State the total funds requested. Please share a short, itemized budget for materials and supplies (maximum $1500).
- Letter of Approval of the project from supervisor. Please address if there is an existing budget number that funds can be transferred to, or if a new budget number will be needed.
Deadline: June 15, 2025
How to submit application: Use the above outline to structure the application. Submit all materials as a single PDF to HumanizeMedicine@jh.edu .
Review Criteria: We will review applications with a multi-disciplinary team of reviewers. Applications will be scored for potential benefit, feasibility and sustainability.
**While research projects are not precluded, we hope that submissions will be focused on actions or initiatives to “humanize” the patient care experience as the measure of quality improvement.
Award Announcement: We will announce awards in July.
Post-award requirements: All Impact Grant recipients will be required to provide a brief progress report six months after the award, describing the project implementation, cost and impact. Teams may request 1 extension prior to the end of the 6 months. Unused funds should be returned. Teams are encouraged to document their work through photographs. Selected images may be feature on the CHM website to highlight the meaningful contributions of our grant recipients.
FOR QUESTIONS
HumanizeMedicine@jh.edu
