HCD Guest Author

Our healthcare team is in the midst of a benchmarking exercise at a hospital with which we have an amicable, non-client relationship. It is helpful to rely on this arm's length arrangement to mine the pertinent data targeted in such an essential exercise.

Design benchmarking is a chance to play detective—observe, question, learn—and determine why a building looks the way it does, and, at the same time, compare how some other team does things, good and bad, versus our own approach.

“What do you expect and hope to be the contribution of the Millennium generation as they come of age?” This was the question that I asked, during a recent healthcare leadership conference, of Tom Brokaw, author of "Boom!" and "The

Recently, HKS’s Clinical Solutions & Research (HKS CS&R) team partnered with Northern Lights Navigation to conduct an operations analysis for Orlando Regional Medical Center (

I am pleased to announce that I will be joining The Neenan Company to co-host a Twitter chat at #RethinkArch. Join us to discuss where we were in healthcare design ten years ago, where we're at now, and where we're going. We'll be looking at how hospital design trends impact operating and patient costs, patient outcomes, sustainability, hospital choice, and more.

Please open the attached PDF to view the 2011 Healthcare Design Green Directory.

I cringe when I hear the word “lean.” Not because I do not believe in the work of the Toyoda family and Taiichi Ohno, and others who ultimately led to the overuse of the term, but because most instances where I hear “lean” have nothing to do with the s

Bound to enhance its reputation as one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals in 2010 by the independent healthcare ratings organization, HealthGrades, Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center (FHMCC) is now treating as many as 80 patients a day at its new freestanding cancer institute in Daytona Beach.

When I moved from the clinical and diagnostic side of healthcare as a medical technologist to publishing, I brought with me a legacy of training in sciences and research methodology. In the laboratory, metrics, analytical observations, and logical summaries of complex interactions are the guidelines. These are also the guidelines of a professional journalist.

Healing gardens aren’t a fad. One of the earliest healing gardens dates back to the 1100s. In a time before pain pills, St. Bernard’s hospice at Clairvaux Abbey in France featured a cloistered garden because he believed being in nature comforted his patients and reduced their suffering.

I'll admit I was scared as our building swayed like a sunflower in a sunny meadow on August 23^rd, 2011. It was the Virginia earthquake (http://www.usgs.gov/)making itself known along the eastern half of the country. I’m ashamed to say my first thought wasn’t to run outside but rather whether the 1901 building would hold up. Ridiculous, aren’t I?