VAHEDG Final

The Official Journal of the International Hospital …

2011

During the 1990s, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) underwent a major transformation, balancing inpatient care with outpatient services, ensuring Veterans had access to standardized benefits, and improving population health. Since those years, VHA has continued to make many incremental improvements. Faced with enormous changes within health care, future financial constraints on government, and evolving Veteran expectations, VHA must move beyond problem-based disease care to patientcentered health care, based on relationships between the patient, his or her family, and the health care team. This new system must also be safe, of high quality, and efficient.

2003

ABSTRACT Consumerism, environmentalism, and a growing patient's right movement combined in the late 1970s to influence the design, spatial organization and management of US hospitals. A shift in services to ambulatory facilities, hard financial times, and an increased competition for patients threatened to downsize or close individual institutions. To survive, new marketing strategies were required. Insights into the depersonalizing influence of hospitals on patients and their potential for responding to human needs for security and comfort suggested the creation of truly "therapeutic environments." Contemporary hospital architecture had already realized the need for flexible space, adaptable to the shifting demands of medical technology and staffing. Indeed, many newly build hospitals returned to previous extended horizontal designs to improve circulation and communication. Inside, the hospital space was divided into "zones" and provided with a central atrium--often the lobby--to enhance lighting and orientation. Poorly illuminated or windowless hospital settings, especially intensive care and emergency room facilities, contributed to the patients' problem of sensory deprivation. In 1984, a groundbreaking study by Roger Ulrich documented the health benefits that accrued when patients were placed within the sight of natural landscapes. A resurgence of the importance of gardens as sources of reflection and restoration followed. For their part, patient's rooms took notice of the need for privacy by increasing the number of private and semiprivate rooms. In sharp contrast with the usual barren and sterile "cells," floral sheets and bedspreads, curtains and colored walls, closets, desks and lamps --even art objects—as well as televisions and video recorders reproduced some of the trappings of home. "Humanness is denied when choice and setting deprivation are the rule," declared one author. Home-like surroundings were said to lessen the stress of care and speed recovery. Patient rights suggested that the sufferers become partners in their care. Reduced costs, improved patient satisfaction and better outcomes were expected. This paper will end by focusing on Planetree, a non-profit organization originally from California encouraging patient and family involvement during hospitalization. Installed in numerous institutions across the US, their Model Hospital Unit sought to create such a homelike environment through physical changes and staff reorganization.

2008

The need for an understanding of how innovative solutions can be used during the design of new hospitals is growing and many National Health Service (NHS) infrastructures are facing new challenges. For instance, in 2001 the first NHS privately financed hospital, the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle faced problems that included: overcrowding due to inadequate bed space provision; overheating due to the design and use of a glass atrium, with maximum temperatures reaching over 35°C; and collapsed ceilings. Furthermore, the British Broadcasting Service (BBC) (2007) reported that NHS Trusts in England were struggling to meet current hygiene standards. This highlights the existence of design challenges in these hospitals in the creation of Built Healing Environments (BHEs) that enhance patient wellbeing, staff performance, operational efficiency and medical outcomes, There have been considerable advances in Construction Information Technology (IT), especially in Computer Aided Design (CAD...

Newborn and Infant Nursing Reviews, 2004

Health care leaders are continually seeking ways to optimize their care services, become financially viable, and retain quality caregivers. Such goals seem impossible in today's intensely competitive environment. The incorporation of a healing environment into the health care setting not only optimizes clinical care and outcomes, it also optimizes staff satisfaction, morale, retention, and fosters repeat business. It has been shown that views of nature, natural light, soothing colors, therapeutic sounds, and the interaction of family members can enhance healing. These elements must be balanced with staff needs when designing critical care environments.

2012

2018

In hospital buildings wherever most, patients look for medical treatment and employees provides continuous support, making a healing atmosphere is primarily necessary and relevant. Healing suggests redressing ills and establishing a method that leads towards health. The term ‘Healing Architecture’ that has been coined recently, is employed to invoke a way of a nonstop process; It has been known for a protracted time that the natural atmosphere is closely connected with health and its close environmental conditions have an effect on human health. However, there's little proof to counsel that the physical aspects of designed atmosphere will have an effect on human health. These physical aspects of healing atmosphere serve for all users of the care facility: employees, clinicians, directors, patients and families. Existing studies have shown that in a very newer hospital atmosphere higher health outcome will be achieved once the physical aspects like access to outside read, patient...

Journal of Public Mental Health, 2005

2022

With advances in healthcare design settings and technology, previously established frameworks warrant to be revisited. A new framework based on the principles of holistic healing that integrates design theories and incorporates significant interior design components that help designers create healing spaces, through better understanding of user perception and preference of interior design elements is discussed. The holistic healing framework proposed is aimed at achieving satisfaction for single-occupancy room users with their hospital rooms. This framework appears to be particularly valuable in studying and understanding the physical setting and individual interactions within the environmental behaviour and how people perceive their surroundings. The onus is on designers to introduce design and décor to meet hospital room user requirements and showcase designer skills. Addressing a hospital room user's satisfaction with healthcare facilities is only possible if these requirements are clearly documented and environmental behavior theories are fully understood.