Existing space in hospitals is a valuable resource that historically has been overlooked as organizations focus on renovating and expanding their physical plants. With fluctuating workloads, rapidly changing technology, staff turnover, and limited access to capital in today’s dynamic healthcare environment, hospital leaders are increasingly looking for ways to better use what they already have. They are also committed to building flexible space when they do renovate or start from scratch.
Cynthia Hayward
Rethinking Parking Lots and Structures
When it comes to parking, hospitals seem to never have enough. At the same time, customers ― whether patients, staff, or visitors ― always want to park as close as possible to the their designated entrance. Because easy and convenient access is a prime indicator of hospital customer satisfaction, U.S. hospitals are rethinking the expansive asphalt parking lot and dreary concrete parking structure. Innovations in design, technology, and financing, along with careful planning, can mitigate shortages and improve customer convenience. Now with a global pandemic, parking lots and structures are also being called into action as part of an organization’s emergency response strategy.
Reconfiguring Hospital Diagnostic Services
Planning space for diagnostic services, and assessing the need for equipment, can be complicated from many perspectives. Some equipment is becoming miniaturized, portable (even handheld), and more affordable so that it can be easily used at the patient’s bedside, in the physician’s office, or even in the patient’s home. Other equipment continues to require a large footprint, unique design features, and a big investment, and is increasingly specialized. Imaging services no longer reside within the boundaries of the “radiology department” but instead are provided in many locations throughout the healthcare enterprise — often replacing other testing modalities that once occupied their own departments. The challenge is not only to determine what equipment to purchase but where to locate it.
Factors Affecting the Size of a Surgery Suite
The hospital surgery suite has undergone revolutionary change over the past several decades. For a long time, the focus has been on shifting surgery to a lower-cost outpatient setting. This has been replaced with a focus on lowering both the costs and risks of surgery with the ongoing migration from invasive to less-invasive surgery or noninvasive procedures. Minimally-invasive, image-guided, robotic, and telesurgery ― along with intraoperative imaging techniques ― continue to replace traditional surgical procedures. Aside from the economies of scale achieved with larger surgical suites, the biggest single factor contributing to the overall footprint of the surgery suite is the size and specialization of the individual operating rooms (ORs). Other factors include the proportion of outpatient surgery performed in the suite, and the type of patient care spaces provided, as well as the efficiency of the surgical suite layout.
Planning Flexible Healthcare Facilities No Longer Optional
The term “flexibility” has become somewhat overused today. It is repeated as a mantra among healthcare planners and design architects. By definition it means “adaptable” or “adjustable to change.” In reality, achieving flexibility often requires that physicians and department managers and staff relinquish absolute control over their space and equipment for the greater good of the organization. However, with fluctuating workloads, rapidly changing technology, staff shortages and high turnover, and limited access to capital in today’s dynamic healthcare environment, planning flexible space is no longer an option.
Physician Turf Wars Complicate Facility Planning
Often unknown to the general public, physicians in the U.S. continuously struggle to defend and expand their increasingly overlapping empires. Hospitals, freestanding healthcare centers, and other venues are their battlegrounds and facility planners are often in the crossfire. As medical technology continues to evolve ― and reimbursement diminishes ― the traditional boundary lines separating specialties have become blurred and facility planning can be contentious.