The Center for Health Design Blog

October 1st, 2008

Posted by
Sara Marberry

Beware of Sound Bites

I was watching CNN yesterday morning while working out and there was a segment called “Fact Check” in which reporters investigate whether something one of the presidential candidates said about the other or about a policy issue was true, false, or misleading. In this, case it was McCain saying that Obama was proposing $860 billion in new spending — which, in fact was misleading. Obama is proposing new spending — but also cuts — so the figure is much lower and in line with what McCain is proposing.

It made me recall a conversation I had last week with Sheila Cahnman, Group Vice President at the architectural firm HOK in Chicago. We were talking about some of the misleading information that is currently out there about evidence-based design (see a recent blog post on this). She shared with me that one of her clients had told her during planning for a project that patient room sizes had to be a certain square foot because the Advisory Board had said so.

Now, I know that the Advisory Board has some really good information for its members. But it is certainly not an expert in healthcare facility design, and, as Sheila pointed out, every project has different needs and all the issues should be carefully explored before making a decision. An evidence-based design process would include exploring all the research data to support that decision as well.

So, beware of sound bites. Just because someone says something, it doesn’t mean that it is true. You still need to do your homework and make an informed decision. I recommend this for both politics and building design!

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