HGA
The project reimagines how a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) can function in the future to achieve better outcomes.
Kentucky Children’s Hospital (KCH), part of the UK HealthCare system housed within the Chandler Campus facilities, creates a hospital within a hospital. Research was integrated throughout the project to help create the Project Guiding Principles, gather the voice of the customer, collect baseline pre-occupancy metrics, inform design decisions (including mock-ups) and, during post-occupancy, to evaluate the effectiveness of those goals. HGA’s research team was on the project from beginning to end to assist with these evidence-based design activities.
The research challenge for this project was to identify the appropriate research hypotheses to test (there were many, and had to decide which ones would be the most important given limited time and resources), who best to collect the data, and which research methods to use. HGA, GBBN and Smith Hager Bajo were involved in early research projects to inform the design and programming. Following that, a meeting was held with multiple interested parties to discuss, prioritize and assign research projects. As a result of this meeting, the HGA research team, accompanied by GBBN and PNNL (lighting researcher) decided to use pre-post studies as the research method for the related questions.
Hypothesis #1: If private patient rooms are provided, then staff will be more satisfied.
Staff findings were almost exclusively ranked as more satisfying for all the patient room elements post-occupancy. One exception was safety and security, which ranked slightly above neutral pre-occupancy. Qualitative data indicated that in the shared patient rooms staff felt safe in direct visualization of their teammates. However, post-occupancy ‘safety’ was ranked higher in satisfaction but this is unexplained.
Hypothesis #2: If a cyclical controllable lighting scheme is provided, then staff will be more satisfied.
Lighting data is continuously gathered through the lighting control system in every room. The control system records every change in the lighting system, whether programmed or initiated by an occupant in the space. The initial data shows there are more changes between 8:00 PM and 8:00 AM than during the day, indicating the programming of the lights during the day is meeting the needs of the occupants.
Hypothesis #3: If sound levels are decreased, staff will be more satisfied.
Acoustic readings indicate post-occupancy sound levels in the patient room were consistently higher than the recommended standards. The sound findings for NICU patient rooms is consistent with other studies that related this outcome to noisy equipment needed to support the typical NICU baby.