Rethinking Healthcare Design

The epidemic has had a significant impact on the American healthcare system, speeding up the process of transferring patients from hospitals to outpatient settings. While allowing the hospital to concentrate on long-term and highly specialized care, moving the treatment of less serious or critical conditions off the hospital grounds can help limit exposure and transmission. Healthcare customers are reevaluating how to plan spaces in hospitals for flexibility while maintaining the safety of patients and staff. Continue Reading to get the highlights from the article or click here for the full article.

Rethinking patient’s room design

The patient care department in hospitals today is under some of the most intense demand to improve its pandemic resilience and flexibility. In particular, there is a need to support patient and staff safety while ramping up and down the number of active beds. As a result, it is now more important than ever for all patient rooms to be private and equipped for rapid isolation.

The demand for acuity-adaptable rooms that can accommodate various purposes or bed counts can be addressed by remodeling patient rooms to be more significant. Larger rooms can accommodate more modifications in furniture and bed counts because there is more space available

Planning core services

Core services including emergency, surgery and imaging must continue to run during emergencies outside of the patient room. When the pandemic hit, many hospitals with mixed inpatient and outpatient care platforms—which offer both short-term, emergency care and long-term, chronic care in the same setting—were unprepared. In certain situations, this circumstance led to the curtailment of non-emergent services or the denial of hospital admission to non-pandemic patients to reduce the danger of exposure.

In addition, hospitals with these essential services in the middle of the building had to juggle entry, exit, and flowthrough and faced greater challenges due to the department’s restricted access points.

Lean lessons

Off-campus ambulatory service delivery is still one of the healthcare industry’s fastest-growing segments. Project teams must develop design plans that address how to maintain these services through upcoming crises as the pace of these initiatives quickens.

These methods can benefit from the application of lean tactics, which include concentrating on workflow analysis to optimize space for each service/care modality as well as the flow of people and supplies while minimizing waste in the built environment.

If this is something that interested you please check out The Future of Research in Healthcare Design, Mercy Health Graduate Center, and Women’s Health in Healthcare Design.

Marie Wikoff is the creator of Wikoff Design Studio based out of Reno, Nevada. Her expertise in healthcare design has helped modernize healthcare organizations locally, regionally, and internationally, improving patient experience and outcomes. Her credentials include Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC), American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designer (CHID), the National Council of Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) and LEED AP. Contact Marie Wikoff