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Healthcare Facilities

Implementing Evidence-Based Design into Healthcare Facilities
Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Architects play a significant role in designing healthcare buildings that enhance healthcare operations and provide a safer environment for both patients and healthcare providers. By implementing evidence-based design methodology, design is determined by science and proven successes rather than initial cost or personal preferences.

As healthcare industry construction booms, now is the opportune time to begin practicing evidence-based design.  Key areas of importance from an architectural perspective include:

  • Ergonomics: Implementing design factors intended to maximize productivity while improving the safety of both the patient and the healthcare staff. Elements such as having the bathroom on the same side of the room as the patients' beds can reduce the chance of falls.
  • Acuity adaptable: Create rooms to house the same patient from admission to discharge no matter the health issues that may arise during the stay. Patient rooms designed to cater to all needs reduces transportation cost, document loss and bottlenecks causing delay in patient care.
  • Air control and Filtration: The second most powerful way to control the level of pathogens in the air is ventilation through the use of air changes per hour (ACH). Filtering the moving air at 95 percent efficiency through HEPA filters throughout the building removes particulates. Aside from filtering and moving air, climate control within the building creates a need to analyze heating, cooling and ventilation.
  • Human factors analysis: The study of the interrelationships among humans, the tools they use and the environment in which they live and work. Nurses are typically not involved in the planning stages of a new building. Nurses can offer specialized knowledge of the unique needs of patients, themselves and patient families. They should be involved in all phases of the planning process to help guide the design process of healthcare environments built to reduce errors.
  • Universal design: A building design should be usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone regardless of age, ability or status in life.
  • Green buildings: Buildings that are resource efficient in design, construction, operation, management and demolition.

In a recent survey performed on behalf of the journal Health Facilities Management and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering, only 48% of hospitals surveyed stated they incorporated evidence-based design in their construction process.

There is a large window of opportunity for architects to begin improving the healthcare industry through building design and the incorporation of proven patient-safety features.

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