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Insights & Solutions

Get the latest trends, tools, and resources for improving healthcare environments here. Browse our many free and members-only resources, including research reports and issue briefs, interviews, case studies, design strategies, lessons learned, key point summaries, and webinars.

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Webinar

Comprehensive Test Methods for Products in Behavioral Health Environments at the Design in Mental Health Network

July 2019 ∘ Webinar ∘
This webinar will discuss some of the common challenges witnessed and used to develop the testing methods – with a focus on ligature performance and robustness.  Hear about their learnings about doors and windows which feature so highly with sentinel events that they needed their own category of testing.   Review key areas of risk within mental health environments and lessons learned about managing risk in reality.    
Webinar

Realizing the Benefits of a Human-Centered Approach in Behavioral Health
June 2019 ∘ Webinar ∘
This webinar explores the strategies and cost implications of a human-centered approach to design that leverages tangible and intangible elements to strengthen staff-patient connections, facilitate innovations, and create a safer place for behavioral health care.
Webinar

Reducing Patient Falls: Top Five Physical Design Factors Warranting Attention
June 2019 ∘ Webinar ∘
This webinar will explore the top five factors identified in an experimental study, funded over two phases by the National Patient Safety Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 
Issue Brief

Contact Transmission, Part 2: Materials, Design, and Cleaning
June 2019 ∘ Issue Brief ∘
As part of the infection control toolbox, in this issue brief you will learn about, high-touch and soft surfaces and their effect on antimicrobial behavior, different cleaning mechanisms and their impact on surfaces, and an approach for structuring infection prevention teams during the design process. 
Webinar

Surfaces Matter: Evidence Based Strategies for Safe & Sustainable Lifecycle Performance for Patient & Staff Use Environments
June 2019 ∘ Webinar ∘
This webinar offers recent evidence-based strategies that if followed, can contribute to reduced healthcare-associated infections, better HCAHPS scores & longer lifecycle performance.  
Webinar

Automating Safety: How Design Research Can Reveal Solutions for Safe Environments
April 2019 ∘ Webinar ∘
By combining observation, interviews, simulation, and rapid prototyping, this team developed design solutions that help healthcare workers stay safe while engaged in challenging tasks. This webinar brings the experience of the healthcare practitioners who cared for Ebola patients during the 2014 outbreak and introduces a human-centered discovery approach developed by design researchers at SimTigrate Design Lab to define the design requirements of spaces where the risk of self- and cross-contamination is the highest.
Interview

The Importance of Safety, Comfort, and Design in Behavioral Health Furniture, an interview with Suzanne Fawley
October 2018 ∘ Interview ∘
Learn about how the need for behavioral health furniture to encompass not only safety, but also comfort and beauty, why there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to behavioral health design, and how lessons learned from the hospitality field can inform designers working on behavioral health projects.
Webinar

Medication Safety Considerations from a Systems Perspective
September 2018 ∘ Webinar ∘
This webinar will highlight various considerations, evaluation strategies, and previously completed projects, which aim to optimize tasks being performed, information and equipment used, and the design of environments for individuals involved in the medication use process.
Buy Pass
Webinar

Eliminate Waiting Room Time and Increase Exam Room Utilization

May 2018 ∘ Webinar ∘
In this webinar, you will learn about an innovative clinic design and care-delivery model, as well as the real-time locating system (RTLS) technology that supports it. Yet how do you design a clinic and its workflow without a waiting room, where exam rooms are always free for the next patient, where patients make their own way through the halls, and where providers and staff easily know where to go next?
Interview

The Design of a Psychiatric Clinic in Borås Sweden Strives to Create a "Healing" Environment, an interview with Stefan Lundin and Cristiana Caira
February 2018 ∘ Interview ∘
Learn about how the design of a new psychiatric facility strives to normalize mental illness through carefully chosen materials with the goal of creating a “homey,” non-institutional setting, why private patient rooms will be included in the new final building as an important part of the design concept, and how research helped shape the architects’ beliefs that the built environment should support patients’ dignity and independence as part of the recovery process.