Patient centric Healthcare Design

Healthcare facilities for years were considered as spaces for curing and strictly institutional. Hospital environment strives to improve the situation but when unpredictability is combined with operational issues, it can elevate the problem. This creates a poor experience for patients and visitors, inconvenience to staff.

Today the health care institutions are focusing on patient convenience, visitors experience and staff efficiency which can be achieved through design.

The purpose of a patient centered approach is to give patients a voice in the development of the healing environment. Healthcare providers, medical staff, and design teams work to address the needs of patients for the requirements of a healthcare facility.

How can we use design to provide a comfortable and efficient healthcare environment?

Strategic design is a key priority as healthcare providers realize the correlations between better design and increased patient satisfaction.The following principles can lead designers to achieve a patient centric design.

• Understanding the complexity

Hospitals unlike other institutions function round the clock and are accessed by every age group at any hour.They may cater emergency, scheduled out patient visit, chronic care or include rehabilitation therapy. As architects, we need to understand the various situations that the users will experience and collectively create spaces that cater all the needs for patients and staff members.

• Universal access

Healthcare institutions are for the vulnerable section of population. We should not assume that people are always aware and independent.Creating an equal opportunity with out compromising on the standards to ensure safe access to every user is crucial to achieve an optimal design.Compromising in any domain can lead to inconvenience and in some cases can lead to fatalities.

• Privacy

Patients and visitors are more comfortable if they are not exposed to the entire functional flow of the hospital. Exposure to these might lead to anxiety.Privacy at various levels help in masking the back end process and also improves staff efficiency.

• Multi functional

Square footage especially for healthcare facilities is considered premium and hence the design should cater similar activities in case there is a shift in the over all program.Understanding the functional program as a whole and how the activities should be carried will guide designers in creating shared spaces which can be multi functional.

• Built environment

Patients are required to go through various procedures and staff members should be alert and efficient.Creating spaces that provides a visual and psychological relief are often overlooked.These visual breaks help in positive distraction. Built environment sets the scene for the spaces and are to designed considering the type of facility. provision of healing gardens, use of right color palette to set the mood for the space required, inclusion of interactive design elements when needed.