Posted: 10/6/2014
Facility design will enhance quality of care, satisfaction
When they joined the innovative Pebble Project in 2009, Parkland Health & Hospital System officials were looking to other organizations for best practices that might be incorporated into the new hospital. Today, Parkland is where others are turning for landmark research studies in facility design.
Parkland was the first public hospital to join The Center for Health Design’s Pebble Project research program, which was initiated with San Diego Children’s Hospital & Health Center in 2000. By providing examples of health care organizations whose facility design has made a difference in the quality of care – as well as their financial performance – the Pebble Project is creating ripples throughout the health care community.
“Pebble Project partners are demonstrating that facility design can improve the quality of care for patients, attract more patients, recruit and retain staff, increase philanthropic, community and corporate support, and enhance operational efficiency and productivity,” said Kathy Harper, RN, Vice President of Clinical Coordination for the new Parkland hospital.
There are seven innovative Pebble Projects under way at Parkland that include studies involving way-finding, waiting room seating arrangements and art, as well as the impact of construction and testing of mock-up rooms on design decisions, among others.
Several outside agencies including some that were not affiliated with the design or construction of the new hospital are partnering with Parkland for the Pebble Projects.
“We are in a very unique situation,” Harper said. “We have the current hospital where baseline metrics can be taken and then we have the new hospital where changes will be made and the difference can be measured. In most instances, an organization will have its current facility or the new facility, not both, in which to measure outcomes.”
Although most people can see that a landscape painting or photograph is soothing, whereas an abstract can create anxiety, through the studies at Parkland, evidence-based design is being realized on a daily basis. Research has shown that the right artwork can have a calming, healing effect on patients, Harper stated. The same can be said for the way chairs are configured in waiting rooms. By placing chairs in pod-like arrangements with individuals facing each other, stress levels decrease because of one simple thing – people talk.
“They aren’t sitting in a row without an opportunity for a conversation amongst themselves,” Harper said. “Seating in groupings can reduce anxiety for everyone, including patients, family and staff.”
Construction and testing of mock-up rooms also played a key role on design decisions throughout the new facility. A patient room, operating suite, neonatal intensive care room and labor and delivery room were among those areas constructed away from the main facility where staff could test design elements down to the location of toilets in private patient rooms.
While baseline metrics have been taken in many areas of the current facility, it will be 2015 before measures can be recorded in the new hospital. Still, Harper said the research that Parkland will be able to provide to institutions across the country is invaluable.
“It’s groundbreaking work,” she said.