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.
Log in for more information. Not a member yet and want access to an expanded number of resources? Join Now.
Learn about: using green cleaners to improve patient satisfaction scores around the perception of cleanliness, the negative health impacts associated with traditional cleaning products, and the healthier interiors challenge to reduce the use of harmful chemicals.
Learn about: the ways sound can support a healing environment, creating a culture of appropriate noise levels within a busy healthcare setting and engaging staff in building a healing environment in their own units, for patients and for themselves.
Learn about: strategies that disrupt pathogen transmission, the numerous reasons that sink location is important and why post-occupancy evaluations by the design/architecture community are necessary.
Learn about: the ways facilities can maximize reimbursements in light of healthcare reform mandates, the important work architects and designers can do to help with the implications of the Affordable Care Act and tools and resources that are available to help understand the connection between design and outcomes.
Learn about: holistic, cultural solutions to the challenges of the mandated move in healthcare from volume to value, the key to successful cultural transformations and the ways a healthcare organization can understand the patient experience to be successful.
Learn about: the barriers to good patient and provider communication, the ways designers and architects can improve patient and provider communication and the importance of involving patients in the design process.
Learn about: the key cleanliness issues facing the healthcare industry today, the issues that drive patient perceptions about cleanliness, and the ways architects and designers can help improve perceptions of cleanliness.
Learn about: the importance of considering patients' perceptions of cleanliness, ways to look beyond patient perception of cleanliness to create a truly clean environment, and things architects and designers can do to help create clean spaces.
Learn about: the frustrations associated with maintaining clean spaces, the ways designers and architects can set the stage for maintiaining clean spaces, and the importance of training staff to observe patient behavior.
Learn about: the key issues facing healthcare administration as a result of healthcare reform, forward-thinking strategies to manage the challenges associated with healthcare reform and the ways healthcare architects and designers can help envision future healthcare enterprises.
February 2018∘
Tool ∘
Design interventions to improve well-being for patients with behavioral and mental health (BMH) conditions will often have impacts on other populations, as well (e.g., staff, visitors, non-BMH patients who use the same facility). This tool will help you consider those broader impacts and incorporate them into an evidence-based process for a universal design approach.
February 2018∘
Interview ∘
Inside you will learn about: why behavioral health facilities have very different design requirements than general hospitals; how different areas of a behavioral health unit have different safety needs that influence design choices; and which types of safety measures and products should be incorporated into behavioral health units.
Pati, D., Pati, S., & Harvey Jr, T. E. (2016). Security implications of physical design attributes in the emergency department. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 9(4), 50-63.
August 2014∘
Webinar ∘
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.
