Michael Ivy, MD, YNHHS deputy chief medical officer, and Kristine Olson, MD, YNHH chief wellness officer, with the Diary Disk.
Employees: Share your COVID stories in a unique way
Yale New Haven Hospital is currently home to an interactive art installation that invites employees and others to share their COVID-19 pandemic experiences via a unique sculpture called a Diary Disk. The 8-foot-tall disk in the York Street Campus Atrium is designed to light up when people upload their entries to a Diary Disk website (users scan a QR code to access the site). Kristine Olson, MD, YNHH chief wellness officer, noted that sharing our stories can help us remember, heal and grow as a community. Entries are screened for protected health information and other privacy-related issues before being posted on the site. The Diary Disk at YNHH, along with others located throughout New Haven, were developed by Design Brigade – a team of Yale undergraduate and graduate design students creating community-based public art projects. The diary disk was the vision of artist Winter Spera, a Yale graduate who volunteered at YNHH until the start of the pandemic. Hosted by the YNHH Clinician Wellness Council, the disk is championed by Laura Morrison, MD, with the Palliative Care Consultation Service and director of Palliative Medicine Education at Yale School of Medicine. The YNHH disk will also be on display at the Saint Raphael Campus.
