Barriers to Change
I attended a meeting the other day of a group of volunteers assembled by The Center for Health Design with support from the Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild Foundation. Our task was to have a discussion about the long-term care guidelines for the design and construction of healthcare facilities and see where we could identify areas for changes or additions.
Rob Mayer of the Rothschild Foundation told the group that the question they are always asking about long-term care is “What are the barriers to change?” In terms of the built environment, the answer is usually, “regulation.”
Some of the organizations with representatives at the meeting included Planetree, the Pioneer Network, Facilities Guidelines Institute, Society for the Advancement of Gerontological Environments (SAGE), and several architecture and design professionals who are actively participating on the guidelines revision committee. Here’s some of the interesting comments I heard throughout the day:
“Person-centered care is person-centered care no matter where you are on the healthcare continuum.”
“Wonderful stories [about elders in long-term care settings] don’t create change.”
“We’re not nursing home abolitionists, because there are still a lot of people living in those places.”
“Acuity-adaptable settings — healthcare provided where people live — is a new way of thinking about assisted living and long-term care.”
Look for more to come from this workgroup, which plans to draft a series of white papers and comment on the next round of revisions for the guidelines.