What Post-Pandemic Hospitals Might Look Like

When the first wave of Covid-19 patients crashed into New York City hospitals in March, it quickly became clear that this public-health crisis was also a design problem: Without clear signage and sealed rooms and doors to contain infection risk, doctors and nurses could be unwittingly spreading contagion throughout the hospital.

To fix its isolation regime, Mount Sinai Hospital in upper Manhattan turned to Ariadne Labs, a center for health-systems innovation affiliated with Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. Working with the nonprofit MASS Design Group, the Ariadne team quickly helped redesign the hospital’s Covid ward with clearly marked doors, bright warning graphics and places to don and doff personal protective equipment.