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Patient Room 2020 – The Hospital Room of the Future

Posted by admin on Aug 7, 2013 in Featured Artists and Inspirations

Good design may revolutionize healthcare industry, & improve outcomes

Earlier this month, a team of architects and designers introduced “Patient Room 2020”. This product uses “smart design” to revolutionize healthcare the way it’s done for electronics and aircrafts.

Patient Room 2020 was revealed for the first time this month in New York City.

Background:

In 2006, NXT Health received a Department of Defense grant to help produce “the hospital room of the future”–one that actually improves outcomes for individuals. This wouldn’t require federal legislation, or high-tech inventions, just better design.

Patient Room 2020 was revealed for the first time this month in New York City. According to the article, it’s meant to address the following healthcare issues:

a lack of patient engagement in his or her own treatment;
hospital-acquired infections;
caregiver inefficiency; and
overall patient discomfort, which “can distract from rehabilitation and generally can make hospital rooms miserable environments.”

Designing the room was a systems approach, which is often used in other industries, but not healthcare.

“In the future there are going to be fewer hospitals, so when we build those hospitals we better build them right,” Whitman says. “We need to build them in a highly engineered, highly technological way so that they are actually part of the care process, not just an appendage.”

Last year, it was reported that some hospitals were using hotel-like design elements to attract insured patients and generate better outcomes and profits–CEO of Henry Ford West Bloomfield (Mich.) Hospital Gerard van Grinsven described them as “wellness” services to improve the patient experience.