Good Facility Design Enhances Well-Being, Patient Outcomes
February 12, 2020
Part 1: Focus on health care
The Channelnomics Staff
Patients and visitors at Methodist Richardson Medical Center in Dallas won’t find themselves in a typical health care facility, where strangers in waiting rooms sit side-by-side in straight-backed chairs, leafing through magazines in which they have no interest, or where visitors cram awkwardly into a cubicle-size room with limited seating (or no seats at all), holding their belongings and trying not to bump into one of the machines – or a staff member – while visiting with a patient.
Instead, at Methodist Richardson, each area has multiple “zones” to accommodate a variety of activities. Visiting families can share a meal at a table; a tired guest can get some shut-eye on a recliner; and a businesswoman can sit behind a partition to charge her tablet and answer work e-mails in private.
It’s all thanks to Steelcase, which joined forces with Methodist Richardson leadership; architecture firm Perkins and Will; and BKM, one of its dealers, to design the state-of-the-art medical facility. Steelcase may be a furniture company, but it’s also at the forefront of research on workspace design and has proven itself to be an innovator by breaking into new markets such as technology.
At the latest Healthcare Design Conference & Expo, in New Orleans this past December, Steelcase joined more than 4,000 industry pros and 250 exhibitors to explore the ins and outs of health care facility design. Two emerging trends took the spotlight at the event: flexibility and virtual care.
Flexibility – the ability of a space to be versatile (used as is for multiple purposes), modifiable (changed with relative ease), convertible (adaptable for new uses), and scalable (expanded or contracted based on need) – tops the priority list for today’s medical facilities. Steelcase’s research found that health care organizations, on the average, would be willing to invest 20% or more in capital costs to achieve flexibility throughout the life of a facility.
As for virtual care, physical space still matters, despite the online delivery of services.
To deliver superior “webside manner,” a sufficient high-tech solution is required, of course. That means a webcam and a reliable Internet connection are key. Beyond that, though, spatial limitations and design no-no’s can impede a productive virtual office visit.
Steelcase worked with Workspace Futures, an internal group of researchers, strategists, and futurists, to come up with some design attributes and best practices around virtual care.
• Be user-centric: Focus first on the needs of the people involved; don’t let technology pre-empt the human connection.
• Maintain consistency: Mimic the same physical features and attributes that patients would come to expect at a brick-and-mortar health care facility. Optimize the acoustics, background, and lighting. Provide visual cues – backgrounds, furnishings, and clinician attire – that echo those found at a physical location.
• Strive for versatility: Maximize allotted spaces so they can be used for multiple work modes, whether taking notes or collaborating one-on-one.
• Keep convertibility in mind: Use adaptable furniture and settings that can support multiple activities and functions. Modular office walls and mobile furniture, for example, can be reconfigured on the fly.
Keeping all of those trends and best practices around flexibility and virtual care in mind, today’s health care facilities have begun to reinvent themselves when it comes to layout and design, a la Methodist Richardson.
Along with its partners, Steelcase has been out in the field, taking a closer look at hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other health care facilities to pinpoint shortcomings in design and identify ways to remedy those ills in order to enhance the well-being of clinicians, patients, and family members alike.
Exam spaces: Today’s patients are less passive and more engaged in their own health care than ever before. That goes for patients’ families as well. When it comes to exam rooms, collaboration is the new buzzword. To that end, Steelcase is working with health care facilities and personnel to reimagine these spaces, replacing unwieldy floor plans that lack personal storage and information-sharing accommodations with flexible spaces featuring comfortable seating, support for evolving technology, demountable walls and modular furniture, and efficient use of spatial “zones” and vertical planes.
Patient rooms: In these spaces, too, collaboration with family members has become the primary focus. Visitors need the right layout and furnishings to make the most of their time with patients. Translation: Visiting family and friends seek accommodations that allow them to comfortably socialize, eat, work, rest, communicate with care providers, and learn.
Transition spaces/waiting rooms: Instead of being one-dimensional, open rooms where strangers convene awkwardly, these should be adaptable, productive environments that support a range of different activities and functions. With the help of Steelcase, medical facilities are switching out the old (single rows of chairs, limited sightlines to information sources, minimal support for technology devices, and few positive distractions) for the new (clustered seating arrangements that provide intimacy and privacy, well-integrated and -managed technology, comfortable seating, and a soothing environment with calming colors and artwork).
Stay tuned for part 2 in our three-part series on vertical market workspace trends.
Instead, at Methodist Richardson, each area has multiple “zones” to accommodate a variety of activities. Visiting families can share a meal at a table; a tired guest can get some shut-eye on a recliner; and a businesswoman can sit behind a partition to charge her tablet and answer work e-mails in private.
It’s all thanks to Steelcase, which joined forces with Methodist Richardson leadership; architecture firm Perkins and Will; and BKM, one of its dealers, to design the state-of-the-art medical facility. Steelcase may be a furniture company, but it’s also at the forefront of research on workspace design and has proven itself to be an innovator by breaking into new markets such as technology.
At the latest Healthcare Design Conference & Expo, in New Orleans this past December, Steelcase joined more than 4,000 industry pros and 250 exhibitors to explore the ins and outs of health care facility design. Two emerging trends took the spotlight at the event: flexibility and virtual care.
Flexibility – the ability of a space to be versatile (used as is for multiple purposes), modifiable (changed with relative ease), convertible (adaptable for new uses), and scalable (expanded or contracted based on need) – tops the priority list for today’s medical facilities. Steelcase’s research found that health care organizations, on the average, would be willing to invest 20% or more in capital costs to achieve flexibility throughout the life of a facility.
As for virtual care, physical space still matters, despite the online delivery of services.
To deliver superior “webside manner,” a sufficient high-tech solution is required, of course. That means a webcam and a reliable Internet connection are key. Beyond that, though, spatial limitations and design no-no’s can impede a productive virtual office visit.
Steelcase worked with Workspace Futures, an internal group of researchers, strategists, and futurists, to come up with some design attributes and best practices around virtual care.
• Be user-centric: Focus first on the needs of the people involved; don’t let technology pre-empt the human connection.
• Maintain consistency: Mimic the same physical features and attributes that patients would come to expect at a brick-and-mortar health care facility. Optimize the acoustics, background, and lighting. Provide visual cues – backgrounds, furnishings, and clinician attire – that echo those found at a physical location.
• Strive for versatility: Maximize allotted spaces so they can be used for multiple work modes, whether taking notes or collaborating one-on-one.
• Keep convertibility in mind: Use adaptable furniture and settings that can support multiple activities and functions. Modular office walls and mobile furniture, for example, can be reconfigured on the fly.
Keeping all of those trends and best practices around flexibility and virtual care in mind, today’s health care facilities have begun to reinvent themselves when it comes to layout and design, a la Methodist Richardson.
Along with its partners, Steelcase has been out in the field, taking a closer look at hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other health care facilities to pinpoint shortcomings in design and identify ways to remedy those ills in order to enhance the well-being of clinicians, patients, and family members alike.
Exam spaces: Today’s patients are less passive and more engaged in their own health care than ever before. That goes for patients’ families as well. When it comes to exam rooms, collaboration is the new buzzword. To that end, Steelcase is working with health care facilities and personnel to reimagine these spaces, replacing unwieldy floor plans that lack personal storage and information-sharing accommodations with flexible spaces featuring comfortable seating, support for evolving technology, demountable walls and modular furniture, and efficient use of spatial “zones” and vertical planes.
Patient rooms: In these spaces, too, collaboration with family members has become the primary focus. Visitors need the right layout and furnishings to make the most of their time with patients. Translation: Visiting family and friends seek accommodations that allow them to comfortably socialize, eat, work, rest, communicate with care providers, and learn.
Transition spaces/waiting rooms: Instead of being one-dimensional, open rooms where strangers convene awkwardly, these should be adaptable, productive environments that support a range of different activities and functions. With the help of Steelcase, medical facilities are switching out the old (single rows of chairs, limited sightlines to information sources, minimal support for technology devices, and few positive distractions) for the new (clustered seating arrangements that provide intimacy and privacy, well-integrated and -managed technology, comfortable seating, and a soothing environment with calming colors and artwork).
Stay tuned for part 2 in our three-part series on vertical market workspace trends.