Healthcare designers and administrators alike value research. Neither wants to end up with a building designed on a whim, without a base of knowledge that supports the decisions that shaped it—from why the windows are glazed in a certain way to how operational flows are laid out.
In the United States, most healthcare design projects are driven by very concrete metrics: schedule, cost, code, and pro-forma, to name a few. Often the program is in place before the first user group meeting, with very little wiggle room for study, interviews, or meaningful research.
But what if these criteria mattered less than observance and integration of the local culture and traditions of the area?
The healthcare industry is consolidating before our very eyes. Hardly a day goes by where a quick scan of headlines doesn’t reveal another new affiliation, acquisition, or physician realignment. Here in Cleveland, it’s tough to drive, well, anywhere without passing a Cleveland Clinic location—whether hospital, clinic, or medical office building.
Healthcare design is all about improving outcomes. Some of our targeted performance goals, however, are getting much more competitive and far more incentivized.
Everyone who works in a healthcare environment, including architects and designers, must strategically tie their actions to a continuous process improvement model, as reimbursement requirements continue to build on baseline performance measures.
The evidence-based design (EBD) movement is inspiring thousands of architects to share knowledge and innovations from research, making architecture more relevant to health system clients and to the national healthcare reform discourse.
U.S. hospitals are water hogs, using an average of 570 gallons of water per staffed bed, per day. To put this figure into perspective, consider that the average American citizen uses around 150 gallons of water per day; the average Briton, 44 gallons; the average African, just 5 gallons.
The mobile-centric world we live in today is spilling over into the healthcare workplace, but the built environment that exists may not be ready to support the trend. It’s a challenge that one team of college students tackled by creating solutions for a healthcare setting that breaks down space restrictions to free up staffers to be more efficient while they’re on the go.
When it comes to integrated project delivery (IPD), the very nature of the contract the involved parties sign means, for better or worse, they’re in it together.
And the challenges that once burdened a particular member of that team—whether the owner, designer, or construction manager—is now a shared burden.
When it comes to sustainable design and green building, we’re often quick to think of energy performance, water conservation, and healing gardens.
But a rising area of concern in healthcare is safer materials selection and the avoidance of chemicals of concern in building materials, furniture, fabrics, and finishes—or, rather, the pursuit of “material health.”
Peru will soon see its first sustainable hospital thanks to founder of the Yantaló Peru Foundation: Luis Vasquez.
In 2005, his nonprofit organization broke ground on the Adelina Soplin Yantaló Clinic & International Diagnostic Center. Named after Vasquez’s late mother, the clinic will cover 4,220 square meters of land in the Peruvian Amazon community of Yantaló.
What if it was possible to reduce hospital spending nationwide by $5 billion in just five years, and to triple that in 10? A study from nonprofit organization The Commonwealth Fund is saying it isn’t just possible, but it’s already being done—at least on a smaller scale.
So what’s the secret? Sustainability.
Not long ago, it was a matter of course that patients would go to a hospital for surgery and other complex procedures. Today, it's well documented that higher-acuity care is increasingly being delivered in medical office buildings (MOBs) and other outpatient spaces, rather than in more highly regulated inpatient facilities.
