In an industry that continually seeks new ways to serve patients and provide a higher standard of care, it's no wonder that healthcare organizations are always looking ahead. Healthcare providers often ask themselves: “What will the hospital of the future look like?”...
A recent article published by the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) showcases the increasing availability and financial possibilities of solar-powered commercial buildings in the United States, made possible by a budding energy model: power purchasing...
From the most recent crop of articles, lectures and industry chatter, it seems that hospital planners are beginning to look beyond evidence-based design for a new focus. Yet we remain perhaps too narrowly attuned to micro-process changes in healthcare—such as room...
Two weeks ago, my colleague Simon Bruce touched off a discussion about using Lean principles in planning and design. A current strategy of Lean design is to get as much program as possible out of the expensive I-Occupancy construction and into an adjacent B-Occupancy...
The Global Health and Safety Initiative (GHSI), along with industry partners, is currently in the process of developing an ecological footprint calculator expected to provide comparable sustainability measurements within and between healthcare systems. The ecological footprint concept aims to record every input into a system and calculate its demand on the Earth. GHSI, a sector-wide collaboration of healthcare companies and organizations, has inherited the Eco-Health Footprint from Kaiser Permanente, one of the organization’s cofounding companies.
How often have you heard, “We don’t want this hospital to feel sterile and institutional?” How often have you said it yourself as if this were something completely sensible? Maybe it’s time we all took a deep breath and asked ourselves, “In a world where hospital...
With water playing a necessary role in our day-to-day survival and evolution, it is no wonder that we find the sound and sights of flowing water relaxing—a “psychological massage” as pond hobbyist Dave A. Jones puts it. Co-owner of The Pond Professional in Woodstock,...
On July 31st, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering of the American Hospital Association (ASHE) released a Guidance Statement to Membership in which they caution “potential misrepresentations of the [evidence based design] concept and the apparently...
Recently, we ran a news article about theretail clinic boom currently happening in Illinois. In the original article, Wendy Edwards, the area's lead nurse practitioner noted, "We’re really not in competition with the immediate care clinics. We’re trying to take the...
I've gone through some enlightening experiences recently, all revolving around the issue of trust. Specifically, via various article proposals, interviews, and conference visits, I've taken a tour of the arcane world of design documents. Even more specifically, these...
The 2008 Healthcare Energy Efficiency Indicator report shows that the healthcare industry seems to put a greater importance on many areas of energy efficiency than the overall building industry does. But the study also brings to light areas in which healthcare is lagging in comparison to other industries.
If you have driven through the Midwest, you have seen dozens of towns similar to Greensburg, Kansas. The main streets of these towns are lined with historic buildings that a generation ago housed thriving businesses that were the backbone of the local economy. Their...
