Insights & Solutions

This webinar focuses on methods, tools, and inspiration for commissioning art in healthcare environments. The presenter discusses how to determine your art requirements, finding the right artist, managing RFPs for artwork, and using digital tools to streamline the commission workflow process.

This webinar explores how a vast majority of the design community embraces Universal Design as a concept – especially those in health and wellness industries – but true universal design implementation is challenging. In this presentation, two key thought leaders in the universal design arena share expertise and insight around true and tangible universal design: what it means, what it looks like, and how to achieve it. This webinar is the second presentation in a three-part series on universal design. Part 1: “To Age is Human: Universal Design Research and Trends” and is available On Demand. Part 3 will be presented in late 2017/early 2018 and will be presented by a panel of Universal Design futurists.

This webinar covers pioneering models for healthy living and healthcare, including examples from the village movement, healthcare at home, and multigenerational day care. As people live longer, managing the needs of the aging population is more important than ever. But the needs of the aging population – love, safety, health and wellness, the pursuit of happiness – are the same for any person at any age. 

This webinar provides a glimpse into how innovative providers can change that paradigm by integrating new models and technology into their memory caregiving, activities, and building design. Learn from experts in architecture and technology, and walk away with a blueprint of how to make technology come alive in your community.

In this webinar explore how the Green Road Project creates a half-mile long green corridor and wheelchair path and a 1.7-acre central woodland healing garden through the campus of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The goal is to bring the healing benefits of nature to U.S. service members and their families, particularly those with brain injury and PTSD. 

This course covers the process of implementing an evidence-based art program from start to finish using M.D. Anderson as a case study. It includes the developed goals of the art program, types of art used, and provides results from a post-occupancy evaluation. The course also provides suggestions for improving art programs and identifies other resources to enhance one's understanding of evidence-based art. 

For many years, legal precedents have spoken to the need for quality environments for behavioral health patients. Behavioral health facilities span a wide range of care environments including psychiatric hospitals, psychiatric neuropsychiatric nursing units of general hospitals, facilities for the psychiatric medically infirm, neuropsychiatric units, alcohol and drug addiction retreatment facilities, mental health clinics, day hospitals, and day treatment centers. The wide variety of setting and diagnosis is one of the major impediments to creating evidence based design guidelines for behavioral health facilities.

Behavioral health settings guided by strict safety design measures often result in spaces that are stark, plain, and isolated - potentially exacerbating environmental stressors and escalating already difficult patient situations. Acute care emergency settings have a particular set of challenges as EDs are predicting increased visits from behavioral health patients. Faced with the challenge of designing a behavioral health care setting in the Emergency Department at UnityPoint Health in Rock Island, IL, the project team hypothesized that the creation of a Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) with a “Living Room Concept” would provide a higher quality of care to patients while assisting in the staff’s ability to quickly consult and treat a diverse set of patients entering the ED. 

This presentation provides information on the current incidence of healthcare-associated infections in U.S. hospitals and design & construction considerations that can help prevent these outcomes. Examples of published outbreaks related to design and construction activity are provided. In addition, specific examples of design options and construction risk mitigation measures will be reviewed. 

Patient falls are the most common adverse event reported in acute care settings, affecting from between 2% to 10% of annual hospital admissions. Patient falls cause increased morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and have significant cost impacts. One recent study examined the relationship of design factors in patient rooms to falls in 30 units in 15 hospitals. Results indicate key factors associated with higher numbers of falls, including multi-person rooms, shared toilet rooms, number and location of grab bars, and others. Explore the intrinsic and extrinsic factors on fall risk and the role design plays in mitigating these factors through real design solutions.