The Center for Health Design Blog

Redefining “Evidence-Based Design”

The beauty of words, terms and phrases in any language lies in understanding that their meanings can evolve over time as dictated by cultural and societal changes. There are many definitions of “evidence-based design” currently in circulation in the healthcare design community that focus on the use of evidence and creating hypotheses in the service of patient, family, staff outcomes.

As an organization, we feel that it is time to reconcile those different interpretations, and articulate a CHD endorsed definition that captures where our industry is today. The new definition was recently drafted in a collaborative effort by a group of 15 industry experts, including CHD Board members and staff, and can be read below. We welcome your comments.

Evidence-Based Design is the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes. (Source: The Center for Health Design)

Healthcare Leads the Way in Energy Efficiency

Two new studies from the American Society for Healthcare Engineering and Johnson Controls in collaboration with the International Facilities Management Association offer up some interesting information on the importance of energy efficiency to U.S. healthcare executives. On average, they plan to spend 8% of their capital budgets and 6% of their operating budgets to conserve energy in the coming year. This is more than any other business sector.

Most are improving their building management systems; installing energy efficient lighting, variable speed/frequency drives, and lighting sensors; adjusting time that heating/AC runs; and negotiating energy contracts with suppliers.

Hospitals are one of the worst energy “hogs,” so this is good news indeed — and one that experts believe is a long-term trend. And while I’d like to think that part of the motivation is because healthcare organizations want to be more environmentally responsible, most of it is due to the soaring price of energy and the need to control costs.

No matter — the important thing is that healthcare is realizing that going green is not only good for the planet, it is also good business.

P.S. If you haven’t checked out the Global Health & Safety Initiative’s new website yet, please do. This is a collaborative effort between CHD, Health Care Without Harm, Practice Green Health, and a group of health systems to collect and disseminate information on worker safety, patient safety, and environmental health and safety.