Clinic Design Post-Occupancy Evaluation Toolkit (PDF version)

Overview

Evaluation and feedback are key to improving the built environment, especially when it involves the larger community. A post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of an ambulatory care building can provide insight on: 

• identifying and solving problems in the built environment
• fine-tuning the building according to user needs and feedback
• ongoing building adaptions due to changing organizational needs
   

Tool 1: General Information, Organizational Goals & Design Principles

This is used to collect two types of information. The first focuses on the essential information about the organization, the community health center (CHC), and the building project, including major factors that may impact building design such as service types and number of physicians. The second focuses on model of care, organizational challenges and goals, as well as the design intents or principles in support of organizational goals.
 

Tool 2: Audit Of Physical Environment

This audit tool provides a rating system for a set of design features. The tool is organized by major CHC spaces and is intended for an interdisciplinary team, including a CHC representative who is familiar with the facility design and operation as well as front-line staff representatives and designers to walk through spaces (with paper/pen or a laptop) and observe whether design features are implemented and rate how well the features meet certain criteria.
 

Tool 3: Patient Questionnaire

This simple, anonymous paper format questionnaire (2 pages) gathers patient perceptions of the clinic environment and service quality. A Spanish language version is also available.
 

Tool 4: Staff Questionnaire

This is an anonymous questionnaire (3 pages) focusing on staff perception of environmental design and work experience. It is intended to be self-administered by individual staff members.
 

Tool 5: Outcome Data Collection Form

This form facilitates the data collection of outcomes related to the selected goals and design intents. It includes outcomes that are typically collected in clinic operation such as staff turnover rate and clinic cycle time as well as technical measurements like lighting and sound levels.

Copyright 2011-2015 (c) The Center for Health Design. All Rights Reserved. The authorized PDF version, accompanied by the Creative Commons License page, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International LIcense. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. 
This tool is not intended to guarantee specific outcomes. The purpose is to support the ongoing cycle of evidence-based design and construction by enabling the evaluation of built projects for their effectiveness in meeting design and performance goals.