EDAC

Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification

Most healthcare organizations that are building new projects are now asking for evidence-based design in their requests for proposals.  But there are no standards that currently exist to qualify an evidence-based design practitioner.  With funding from the  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Center for Health Design (CHD) is developing a program that will assess professionals on their ability to implement an evidence-based design process into healthcare construction, including renovations, expansions, and replacement facilities.

The role of EDAC is to educate and assess individuals on their understanding of how to base design decisions on available, credible evidence.  The 2006 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities include a new section that defines the environment of care components. EDAC accredited professionals will be able to demonstrate a clear understanding of these components and use an evidence-based design process to meet and/or exceed the recommended minimum requirements.  The goal of the program is not to test people on their knowledge of current available evidence, but rather to test them on the proper process to follow to identify, hypothesize, implement, gather, and report the data associated with their project.  Once an individual is EDAC accredited, he or she will have an ethical obligation to employ an evidence-based design process in his or her work. 

CHD’s first action to develop the EDAC program was to assemble a group of volunteer experts from the healthcare and design community to identify the “base knowledge” that is essential for an individual to have command of in order to implement evidence-based design into a healthcare building project. 

EDAC volunteer log-in.