An article in the Harvard Business Review reports that hospital design can improve clinical outcomes as well as patient satisfaction. In fact, research continues to show that specific design concepts can prevent the spread of hospital-acquired infections, reduce patient pain, and shorten hospital stays. It seems obvious that newly designed hospitals with hotel-like amenities will increase patient satisfaction. But researchers are now actually measuring before and after costs and outcomes of these newly designed hospitals.
Current Trends
Read about current trends in utilization, medical practice, care delivery, and regulations and their facility impact.
Ten Facility Planning Trends for 2015
The U.S. healthcare industry is in a crisis with healthcare reform and new financial incentives, constant demands for technology adoption and deployment, rising turf wars among specialists, an intense focus on patient safety, and aging physical plants. The following ten healthcare facility planning trends affect how new or renovated healthcare facilities are planned, designed, financed, and built.
New International Property Measurement Standard for Office Buildings
As the result of a global effort to establish a uniform method of measuring property worldwide, a new international property measurement standard for office buildings — IPMS for Office Buildings — has been created. The IPMS for Office Buildings is compatible with, and complements, Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International’s current office standard Office Buildings: Standard Methods of Measurement (ANSI/BOMA Z65.1—2010). Historically, property has been measured differently throughout the world. According to research by global property firm JLL, depending on the standard used, the area quoted in different markets for an equivalent building could vary by as much as 24 percent. These inconsistencies have led to confusion in markets, and even led businesses to develop their own costly processes for measuring and benchmarking property assets. The work to create the IPMS for Office Buildings was spearheaded by a coalition of more than 50 professional organizations, including BOMA International, and was produced following global consultation by a team of 18 independent industry experts. The IPMS for Office Buildings document can be found at the IPMS website.
Substerile Rooms No Longer Advised for the Surgical Suite
In the traditional surgery suite design, operating rooms are grouped around a “sterile core” — from which case carts and sterile supplies are retrieved by the circulating nurse and taken into the operating rooms in preparation for surgery. A “substerile” room was typically placed between two operating rooms to provide “flash” or emergent sterilization of unwrapped items to be used immediately in the operating room. The sterile core often housed a sterilizer as well. Because the items were sterilized in open baskets that could be contaminated by improper handling and exposure during transport, the substerile rooms were placed as close as possible to the operating rooms and the sterile core was considered a restricted area.
Average Age of U.S. Hospitals is Increasing
As a result of reduced spending on renovation and new construction, hospital facilities in the U.S. continue to age. From 2005 to 2008, the average age of a hospital plant was about 9.5 years and then increased dramatically to about 10.5 years from 2009 through 2011. Now, with new data that looks at 2009 through 2013, the average age of a hospital plant has increased further to more than 11 years (11.43) which indicates that investment in hospital facilities continues to be insufficient.
Source: Truven ActionOI® database (www.truvenhealth.com).
Safe Patient Handling Programs Gaining Momentum in the U.S.
Healthcare organizations around the world recognize the risks that manual lifting poses for healthcare workers. Canada and the United Kingdom, for example, have national programs focused on safe-patient handling. Momentum has been slow in the U.S. since the American Nurses Association launched its Handle With Care Campaign in 2003. However, as of April 2012, ten states have enacted ”safe patient handling” legislation. Key factors that are responsible for the current focus include the aging population, growing obesity epidemic, and prevention of patient injury. A major driver, however, is the need to prevent injuries to healthcare workers ― particularly with the aging of the nursing work force.