Center for Humanizing Medicine
Call for Impact Grant Applications 2026-2027
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 that advance the vision of the Center for Humanizing Medicine.
In this cycle, our focus is on supporting projects that improve connectedness and collaboration among healthcare teams. Funds may be used to support a range of initiatives that relationships, communication, or overall work experience in clinical settings. These initiatives may include food and promote social connection but are intended to include programmatic activities or elements that go beyond this.
We will also consider especially innovative or impactful patient-oriented projects that enhance humanized care.
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 the healthcare team experience do you see a need for improvement? 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 healthcare team members (or 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 $2000). Team-building events often require food. Please ensure that less than 20% of the budget is used for food. Budgets up to $3000 will be considered with a well-justified budget and high likelihood of sustainability.
- 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. If there is any in-kind support, please describe this as it will be viewed favorably in the review process.
Deadline: June 30, 2026
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
Center for Humanizing Medicine is a project that is supported by the Center for Innovative Medicine.
