Breaking out far beyond the four walls of their institutions, hospitals are engaging with their communities more than ever, with a greater focus on health education, healthy living, and disease prevention. Driven by a competitive healthcare environment, changing reimbursement models, and the rising costs of healthcare, hospitals around the country continue to step up to the plate, embracing their roles as community leaders and preaching health and wellness.
It’s that time of year again. Winter is beginning to wind down (or at least we’re telling ourselves that here in chilly Cleveland), the short month of February is whisking by, and the ASHE Planning, Design, and Construction Summit is right around the corner—the first big industry event of the year.
I’ll be hitting the road (or skies, as it were) and, hopefully, seeing several of you in Phoenix for the conference set to kick off on March 4.
Walking into any healthcare facility, the ways in which its layout, furnishings, or processes and procedures have been adapted to meet the needs of a growing bariatric population may not be immediately obvious, and that’s the point.
From larger weight-bearing chairs to wider door openings to high-tech patient lifts, measures continue to be implemented across the board to care for heavier patients but to do so in a way that maintains patients’ dignity as well as the safety of staff.
As a key strategy in preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), environmental cleaning in healthcare facilities not only enhances patient safety by reducing the presence of pathogens in patients’ surroundings but also significantly impacts other important healthcare outcomes, such as patient satisfaction and healthcare cost.
However, it is increasingly evident that many cleaning practices act as a double-edged sword by producing unintended harmful effects on human health, as well as the environment.
In early 2011, Vendome Group, LLC, publishers of HEALTHCARE DESIGN magazine; The Center for Health Design; and Nurture by Steelcase challenged students with the theme of “waiting” for the first annual Nurture Collegiate Healthcare Design Competition.
You may have noticed a new face on the home page of Healthcare Building Ideas this week. Hamilton Espinosa wrote his first post for the magazine as part of a blog team coming on board from DPR Construction.
Yes, a soiled utility room can be exciting—that is, if you oversee a facility’s materials and waste program. Ask any healthcare sustainability lead about their challenges, and space will certainly be on the list. With the increased complexity of healthcare waste and best management practices, the configuration of the soiled utility room and back door storage areas can improve or impair a program.
Sustainability leads “make it work” with a given space, where it’s likely multiple material segregation was not a reality during its design.
The month of January is always rife with lists that reflect upon the previous year—from the “best of” to “most-read” to “top” of just about anything.
Since the release of the 1999 Institute of Medicine report (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 1999), “To Err is Human,” patient safety improvements have remained elusive, in spite of a host of interventions (Watcher, 2010).
One Hundred Oaks was the first closed indoor shopping mall in Nashville, originally built in 1968. Featuring 880,000 square feet of retail space on a 56-acre site and 4,000 parking spaces, One Hundred Oaks was a “retail wonderland,” well known in the Nashville area. However, by 2005, the mall was dead in the water, another casualty of suburban flight. There were attempts to revive the mall in the 1990s, but despite viable exterior tenants, the interior upper concourse was all but abandoned.
The board of directors at The Center for Health Design (CHD) is made up of a small but significant group of likeminded and diversely experienced individuals who rally around a common mission and inspire relevant thinking for a nonprofit organization that affects the design of healthcare environments all around the world. Each year different people who have contributed to the health design industry rotate on and off the board, adding richness to The Center’s strategy and connectedness.
