Insights & Solutions

As part of the communication toolbox, in this issue brief you will learn about elements of the built environment that improve nurse-patient communication, design interventions that could improve nurse-patient communication as found in the literature and how to ask better questions surrounding this critical relationship during your next project.

Learn about: how communication plays a vital role in nurses’ daily responsibilities, which evidence-based design features support effective communication efforts and why improving communication can lead to best outcomes and impact a facility’s bottom line. 

Learn about: what patients really judge when evaluating a facility’s cleanliness, why patient perceptions of cleanliness directly impact reimbursements, and ways hospitals can improve patients’ views of cleanliness, quality, and safety. 

This session will review information from the HCAHPS and Press Ganey Surveys to understand how reliably patient expectations related to room cleanliness are being met. These data help to identify the types of hospitals and patients that are most at risk for poor cleanliness reports. The webinar examines ways in which these perceptions are related to other organizational outcomes, including “positive word of mouth” and hospital-acquired infection scores. The session ends with a review of design considerations to facilitate room cleaning and improving patient perceptions of cleanliness. 

This presentation outlines the process of linking patient satisfaction to healthcare environments. Sentiment analysis assigns values to the thoughts and feelings of patients and family provided in satisfaction surveys through written word, digital format and voice recordings. This data identified root causes for negative feedback. challenging traditional best practices in healthcare planning and design. 

The waiting room continues to be a major problem area in terms of patient and family experience, as well as organizational efficiency. Healthcare organizations struggle to accommodate high patient volumes and a variety of acuity levels, while patients and families deal with a roller-coaster of emotions, long wait times, and lack of privacy. The majority of research on the topic of waiting room design is based in case studies, which provide little generalizable evidence for further application.

This session reviews the research and design implemented by HDR at Central Washington and how it integrated lean strategies and all 8 steps of the evidence-based design process to deliver a new patient bed tower. Learn how these strategies have impacted both work processes and employee satisfaction. The presenters will discuss their methodology and results from the research conducted, and how that research impacted the design of the hospital, its occupants, and the efficiency of the building.

In 2012, The Center for Health Design received a grant from the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) to develop a standard evidence-based tool for inpatient room design. In a three-phase process, this grant will result in design and evaluation tools for inpatient room design in Medical/Surgical Units, Adult Intensive Care Units (ICU) and Labor Delivery Recovery (LDR) and Maternity Units. The first phase of this project has been completed, resulting in a Beta-test, paper-based version of the Inpatient Room Design Checklist and POE tool for the Med/Surg Room which are shared in this presentation.

In 2011, The Center for Health Design published a glossary of healthcare environment terms and outcome measures commonly used in evidence-based design research for seven key healthcare topics, many of which are tied to CMS reimbursement formulas: health-care associated infections, medical errors, patient falls, patient satisfaction, patient waiting, staff efficiency and staff satisfaction. Learn about the methods used to create the EBD glossary, the work underway to expand the Glossary using the CHD Knowledge Repository, and how you might use this tool in your construction project, during your design education and with EBD research studies.

While discussion of facility design and healthcare reform often focuses on the patient experience of noise and cleanliness as measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, design is also a factor in reform-based outcome targets.