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January 2016∘
Design Strategies ∘
A clean healthcare environment helps improve an organization’s infection prevention efforts, patient satisfaction, and bottom-line. The built environment design constitutes a key component of a systems approach to keeping the healthcare environment clean.
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.
HCAHPS scores related to noise in the hospital environment are typically among the lowest. Acoustic intervention packages implemented by healthcare organizations are often a combination of built environment and operational measures.
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.