http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/arts/design/in-redesigned-room-hospital-patien
ID: 421047 • Letter: H
Question
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/arts/design/in-redesigned-room-hospital-patients-may-feel-better-already.html?hpw&rref=health&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
Can good hospital layout help heal the sick, asks The New York Times (Aug. 22, 2014)? The University Medical Center of Princeton realized that it had outgrown its old home and needed a new one. So management decided to design a mock patient room–similar to the process we report in our video case study in Chapter 9 (called Laying Out Arnold Palmer Hospital’s New Facility). Medical staff members and patients were surveyed. Nurses and doctors spent months moving Post-it notes around a model room set up in the old hospital. It was for just one patient, with a big foldout sofa for guests, a view outdoors, a novel drug dispensary and a bathroom positioned just so.
Discussion questions:
1. Why is layout important in hospitals?
2. What are some of the OM benefits of this new layout?
Explanation / Answer
Importance of Layout in hospitals:
It is no secret that hospital patients are influenced by their surroundings. Hospital design directly impacts patient health – in more ways than one might think. Making your hospital’s layout easier to navigate can improve the patient experience. Research showed that there is a correlation between hospital’s facility layout design and patients health, the healthcare service quality in the addressed hospitals. It is also observed that there is a regression relationship between facility layout design and healthcare service quality, as paying more attention to the facility layout leads to a noticed increase of achieving quality in healthcare service in public hospitals. It is also observed that the facility layout of the studied hospitals has satisfied the majority of workforce in terms of area utilization and facilitating audit process.
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