Insights & Solutions

As part of the noise toolbox, in this issue brief you will learn about how excessive noise can negatively impact patients and staff in the hospital environment, ways to improve patients’ perception of sound, and low-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost design strategies that can reduce noise.

Learn about: why healthcare planners must look to the future, about five key elements that enabled support, flexibility, and patient-centered care, and about the importance of including end users early in the design planning process.

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 the Princeton HealthCare System created a comprehensive campus to meet an array of medical and wellness needs for multiple generations, evidence-based design principles that were incorporated into the built environment, and how the new facility is positioned to respond to the changing healthcare field.

Learn about: how one hospital’s emergency room pilot project increased patient satisfaction, the standards developed post-pilot to decrease noise transfer to other areas of the hospital, and why having design changes on paper may not be enough.

Learn about: how Florida Waterman built patient rooms to reduce noise, how patient satisfaction scores improved as a result of room design changes, and how the team studied the impact of the new design strategy.

Learn about: sustainable healthcare and what it means to Adelante, the organization's method to evaluate design and operational needs for their new flagship facility, and specific strategies implemented to improve patient and provider communication.