Insights & Solutions

In Part 2 of Cheryl’s fascinating conversation today with Linda Lybert--Founder and Executive Director of the Healthcare Surfaces Institute--they discuss the absence of validation requirements for surfaces that are used in the healthcare and hospital environment. Linda shares, “If you don’t have surfaces that are in the healthcare setting that can be effectively cleaned and disinfected, the way they need to be cleaned and disinfected, we won’t ever stop the spread of pathogens that cause deadly infections.”

In this podcast, Linda Lybert, Founder and Executive Director of the Healthcare Surfaces Institute shares what healthcare design professionals most need to know about pathogens post-COVID-19. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic and the education on this is very real,” Linda shares. The fact is we really have to clean our surfaces in the hospital setting in a certain way and on an ongoing basis. This is critical.” Configure

Shultz, J., Borkenhagen, D., Rose, E., Gribbons, B., Rusak-Gillrie, H., Fleck, S., Muniak, A., Filer, J. (2020). Health Environments Research & Design Journal. DOI: 10.1177/1937586719855777

By placing health and wellness at the center of design, construction, technology and programming decisions, Delos is transforming our indoor environments into spaces that actively contribute to human health and well-being. Paul shares how the current crisis is moving beyond political boundaries. “At the end of the day,” Paul shares, “The broader notion of wellness real estate--if we can use our buildings, our homes, our offices, our schools, our hotels, and our senior and assisted living facilities as a way to, constantly and passively, deliver preventative medical intentions through four walls and a roof, there is not one political mind in the world that will have a problem with that.” Paul also discusses Delos’s new Facilities Improvement Program and how it can help our most vulnerable population in this pandemic---our older adults in senior living communities and facilities.

Van Heuvelen, J.S. (2019). Isolation or Interaction: Healthcare Provider Experience of Design Change. Sociology of Health & Illness, 41(4), 692-708.  

 

While the role of the built environment is often overlooked in sociology, van Heuvelen examined the role of the environment as a mediator of organizational culture. This ethnographic study draws on sociology and an "inhabited institutionalist" theoretical framework to assess the staff experience of adjusting to the move from an open-bay to a single family room NICU. Findings show moving to the new SFR unit resulted in less time for discussion and personal support, resulting in a higher reliance on individual assessment skills. This was felt to undermine the culture of collaboration, but in other instances, the prior collaborative culture was transposed. 

In this podcast, Sara Marberry discusses the short-and long-term effects of the current crisis on the healthcare design industry. Sara shares, “A halt on projects in the short term is not necessarily a bad thing.