Nursing unit design and communication patterns: What is “real” work?
2007
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 1
Pages 58-62
Author(s): Becker, F.
With billions of dollars spent each year on new hospital construction and an ever-growing shortage of nurses, more attention is being paid to the way in which design of new facilities and, more specifically, nursing units might better support nurse recruitment, their work process, and retention. There is growing concern about the quality of hospital environments and the impact on staff, which inherently impacts quality of care.
Added September 2014
Exploring the Impact of the Physical Environment on Patient Outcomes in Ambulatory Care Settings
2009
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Journal Article
Issue 2
Volume 2
Pages 21-41
Author(s): Gulwadi, G., Joseph, A., Keller, A.
Recent trends in healthcare have seen a shift in treating episodic care within acute care environments to ambulatory care centers (ACCs). These facilities distribute care based upon prevention and wellness to combat chronic disease and provide care management. Ambulatory care environments consist of a broad platform of care settings and deliver many types of care to a wide range of populations. Due to these and other complexities, research linking the impact of the physical design of ACCs on patient health outcomes has yet to be documented.
Added September 2014
Lactation Space Design: Supporting Evidence-Based Practice and the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative
2011
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Journal Article
Issue 3
Volume 4
Pages 101-109
Author(s): Thompson, T. S., Heflin, L.
Many studies support the philosophy that breast-feeding is the best nutritional option for babies. There is a strong movement to go back to breast-feeding newborn children for their first six months of life because it has been shown that breast-feeding helps reduce the rate of illness for both mother and child. One study done by Simkin showed that infants fed breast milk exclusively for their first three months of life were nine times less likely to be hospitalized for infection.
Added September 2014
Infection Prevention Promotion Program Based on the PRECEDE Model: Improving Hand Hygiene Behaviors Among Healthcare Personnel
2012
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology
Journal Article
Issue 2
Volume 33
Pages 144-151
Author(s): Aboumatar, H., Ristaino, P., Davis, R. O., Thompson, C. B., Maragakis, L., Cosgrove, S., Rosenstein, B., Perl, T. M.
Hand hygiene is critical to prevent transmission of multidrug-resistant organisms and the development of healthcare-associated infections, yet compliance with recommendations is poor.
Added August 2014
Objective evaluation of the effect of noise on the performance of a complex laparoscopic task
2004
Surgery
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 136
Pages 25-30
Author(s): Moorthy, K., Munz, Y., Undre, S., Darzi A.
Noise in operating rooms has been found to be as much as two times higher than the recommended level of 45 dB. Music is played in some operating rooms to reduce patient anxiety, increase the surgeon’s concentration, and mask noise in the operating theater. While some studies have shown the detrimental effect of noise and the beneficial effects of music on patients in the OR, few studies have covered the effects of these factors on the performance of medical staff.
Added July 2014
Centralized vs. Decentralized Nursing Stations: Effects on Nurses’ Functional Use of Space and Work Environment
2010
Health Environments Research and Design Journal (HERD)
Journal Article
Issue 4
Volume 3
Pages 19-42
Author(s): Zborowsky, T., Bunker Hellmich, L., Morelli, A., O’Neill, M.
Information technology enables nurses to move away from traditional centralized paper-charting stations to smaller decentralized work stations and charting substations located closer to, or inside of, patient rooms. Understanding the tradeoffs presented by centralized and decentralized nursing station design could provide useful information for future design and the nurse environment "fit."
Added May 2014
Suicide Attempts and Completions in the Emergency Department in Veterans Affairs Hospitals
2012
Emergency Medicine Journal
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 29
Pages 399-403
Author(s): Mills, P. D., Watts, B. V., DeRosier, J. M., Tomolo, A. M., Bagian, J. P.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, and approximately 1,500 suicides occur in inpatient hospital units in the United States each year, This study examines the specific environmental factors involved in suicide attempts and completions in an ED in a large, nationally represented hospital sample (VA).
Added May 2014
Lean Thinking in Emergency Departments: A Critical Review
2011
Annals of Emergency Medicine
Journal Article
Issue 3
Volume 57
Pages 265-278
Author(s): Holden, R. J.
Added May 2014
The effects of refurbishment on residents' quality of life and wellbeing in two Swedish residential care facilities
2009
Health & Place
Journal Article
Issue 3
Volume 15
Pages 717–724
Author(s): Falk, H., Wijk, H., Persson, L.-O
The prevalence of elderly people with cognitive impairment in Swedish residential care facilities has been estimated to be approximately 50%, usually resulting in integrated populations with both cognitively intact and impaired residents. The physical environment must respond to the changing characteristics of their residents and variations within individuals over time to be able to provide for more than a single stage of fragility.
Added May 2014
Considering the impact of medicine label design characteristics on patient safety
2006
Ergonomics
Journal Article
Issue 5-6
Volume 49
Pages 617-30
Author(s): Hellier, E. , Edworthy, J. , Derbyshire, N. , Costello, A.
The premise of this study is that there is sufficient evidence-based research in areas such as food labeling, chemical labeling, and general warnings that provides systematic evidence on the effects of medication label design characteristics such as font size, color, use of specific language and signal words/warnings on performance behavioral variables such as safety, compliance, understandability, and discriminability.
Added April 2014
Suicide amongst psychiatric inpatients who abscond from the ward: a national clinical survey
2010
BMC Psychiatry
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 10
Pages 14
Author(s): Hunt, I. M., Windfuhr, K., Swinson, N., Shaw, J., Appleby, L., Kapur, N.
Research studies have shown that about 34-39% of patients in psychiatric wards go absconding. The goal of this study was to describe the social and clinical characteristics of people who had absconded from an inpatient psychiatric ward prior to suicide, including aspects of the clinical care they received.
Added April 2014
Challenges in Design and Transition to a Private Room Model in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
2006
Advances in Neonatal Care
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 6
Pages 271-280
Author(s): Carlson, B., Walsh, S., Wergin, T., Schwarzkopf, K., Ecklund, S.
The need for neonatal intensive care units (NICU) is increasing at a time when research suggests their designs need to change to provide a developmentally appropriate healing environment. One approach is a private room NICU model versus a large multibed ward. However, such a radical design change could be challenging to implement.
Added April 2014
Incidents relating to the intra-hospital transfer of critically ill patients
2004
Intensive Care Medicine
Journal Article
Issue 8
Volume 30
Pages 1579-1585
Author(s): Beckmann, U., Gillies, D. M., Berenholtz, S. M., Wu, A. W., Pronovost, P.
Transportation of critically ill patients between hospitals can increase complications. Intrahospital transportation poses many of the same risks. Examining these incidents could uncover ways to improve patient safety during transportation.
Added April 2014
Using a Task Analysis to Describe Nursing Work in Acute Care Patient Environments
2009
Journal of Nursing Administration
Journal Article
Issue 12
Volume 39
Pages 537-547
Author(s): Battisto, D., Pak, R., Vander Wood, M. A., Pilcher, J. J.
A growing body of research demonstrates linkages between workplace design and processes in healthcare facilities with staff and patient safety, operational efficiency, staff satisfaction, and medical errors. There has been less emphasis on the role of the built environment in helping or hindering care delivery. Research is needed on the contextualized activities performed by nurses and how nurses spend their time to measure the effects of interventions aimed at redesigning care to improve safety or efficiency or to understand the implications of policy changes for nursing practice.
Added April 2014
Patient Satisfaction in Women’s Clinics Versus Traditional Primary Care Clinics in the Veterans Administration
Issue 3
Volume 18
Pages 175-181
Author(s): Bean-Mayberry, B., Chang, C-C., McNeil, M., Whittle, J., Hayes, P., Hudson Scholle, S.
Female patients are more satisfied with the care they receive at women’s clinics (WCs) than traditional primary care clinics (TCs). This study is important because the data collected indicate that female patients are more satisfied in WCs than in TCs, regardless of age and race.
Added March 2014
Effects of exam-room computing on clinician-patient communication: A longitudinal qualitative study.
Issue 8
Volume 20
Pages 677-682
Author(s): Frankel, R., Altschuler, A., George, S., Kinsman, J, Jimison, H., Robertson, N, Hsu, J.
Computers are becoming ubiquitous in patient exam rooms. This research investigated their influence on patient-clinician communication. Of particular interest is a discussion of how the spatial organization of the exam room can support patient-clinician communication. Best were arrangements in which patient and clinician were positioned basically shoulder to shoulder so each could simultaneously view the computer screen.
Added March 2014
Health Care Wayfinding Integrates Four Aspects to Become Carefinding
2010
American Society for Healthcare Engineering
Monograph
Author(s): Cooper, R.
Carefinding is a term that refers to an evidence-based approach to designing wayfinding systems in healthcare settings, catering to the needs of the users of those spaces, particularly patients and their caregivers. Successful wayfinding in healthcare facilities requires consideration of the user experience, the wayfinding process, the wayfinding plan, and implementation of the plan.
Added March 2014
The impact of health facilities on healthcare workers’ well-being and performance
2009
International Journal of Nursing Studies
Journal Article
Issue 7
Volume 46
Pages 1025–1034
Author(s): Rechel, B., Buchan, J., McKee, M.
There is extensive research on the effect of healthcare environments on patients. But much less is known about health facilities’ impact the staff, even while there is growing recognition of the need for healthy working environments. Poor healthcare working environments can relate to the nature of the work—long and antisocial hours, little administrative support, physical labor, and, sometimes, violence.
Added February 2014
Parental Views of the Social Environment of an Outpatient Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic
2004
Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing
Journal Article
Issue 5
Volume 21
Pages 264-270
Author(s): Pritchett, J. K., Buckner, E. B.
Researchers learned that when the waiting room was eliminated and all patients and caregivers at a pediatric bone marrow transplant (BMT) clinic waited and received treatment in a single room with all the other patients and caregivers (except for in certain specific situations, as noted below), a social environment developed that was, the authors state, “complementary to the technical aspects of medical care.”
Added February 2014
Adding additional grab bars as a possible strategy for safer hospital stays
2010
Applied Nursing Research
Journal Article
Issue 1
Volume 23
Pages 45-51
Author(s): Tzeng, H.-M., Yin, C.-Y., Schechtman,S.
Inpatient falls are the most commonly reported incidents in hospitals, yet they are largely avoidable and, therefore, an unsolved issue in patient care. It comes as no surprise that patient falls tend to occur most frequently in patient rooms, patient bathrooms, and hallways—the places in which patients spend the majority of their time during their hospital stay. Falls are attributed to breakdowns in communication between patients and caregivers, inadequate assistance, and also the design of the physical environment.
Added February 2014
