Health is not solely defined by the physical conditions that are treated in the doctor’s office or a hospital room. Accordingly, holistic, comprehensive health care must address a myriad of biopsychosocial factors that affect people’s lives and their psychological and social well-being. The University of Chicago’s Comprehensive Care Program (CCP) is designed to provide comprehensive, multifaceted care to complex patients at high risk of hospitalization by allowing them to receive care from a closely-knit team of providers led by a physician who cares for them both in clinic and the hospital. While the CCP’s success is largely the result of strong patient-clinician relationships, and the knowledge, trust, and communication that is promoted by those relationships, patients still have humanistic needs that the current CCP cannot adequately address.

As a result, the CCP aimed to create the Artful Living Program (ALP) in partnership with the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. ALP will augment the care that CCP patients receive and broaden health care “treatment” to include other factors that contribute to overall health and well-being. Leveraging the robust arts and humanities organizations and events already in existence at the University of Chicago and in the surrounding community, and creating their own participatory arts/humanities based programming, ALP hosted events throughout the year for CCP patients to experience art in its various forms - music, theater, cinema, narrative, visual arts, and the physical arts. With a more inclusive definition of health and health care provision, the research team anticipated that through participation in ALP programming, CCP patients will reap the benefits of the arts and humanities and become more engaged, better connected, and healthier while ultimately experiencing greater fulfillment in their lives.