In my last blog I promised to
write about the capacity for excellent healthcare estates to
improve frontline healthcare services, not least by improving the
working environment for clinical and administrative staff. Just a
few examples of specific elements of healthcare facilities that can
make all the difference:
- Good spatial layouts enhance not just the
patient experience but the workplace for all those involved in
frontline patient care. We all know about the need for patient
privacy and dignity, the need for single-sex accommodation, and the
advantages of ensuite single bedrooms, smaller wards and adequate
numbers of nursing staff. But we don’t perhaps always make a direct
causal link between, say, staff recruitment and retention and
bright and airy, attractive accommodation that is well-presented,
modern, innovative, efficient: designed for purpose and a joy to
work in. If we want more high-quality nurses, we need to meet their
needs too.
- Designing in safety enables clinical staff to
devote their time and energy to positive aspects of good patient
care. A poorly planned, inadequate environment (or one that is
simply no longer fit for purpose) can divert scarce, expensive
resources from frontline care to fire-fighting crises caused by the
environment. A stitch in time saves nine, as my grandmother used to
say – better to get the environment right and enable the clinicians
to get on with their duty of care. There’s an interesting ongoing
full-scale experiment from which we can learn, over the pond, in
the form of a hospital (St Joseph’s Hospital, West Bend, Wisconsin)
that from outline concept to operational building has been designed
with safety at the forefront of the project. Notions such as
consistent handed-ness, storage solutions that allow bank and
agency nurses to easily assimilate new working spaces (as they have
the same standardised layout) and so on are proving very
effective.
- Use of specialists in wayfinding
design alongside expertise in the development of patient
co-ordination centres can greatly enhance the patient experience,
reduce administrative burdens and percentage of missed appointments
and so on. The need to embed this thinking in development schemes
at an early stage is often missed, and the need to provide an
integrated experience using digital media is key to success these
days.
I will return to this topic. I would be delighted to hear from
readers of other examples of specific elements of healthcare
facilities that can make a difference, so that we can all share
thoughts about best practice in healthcare estates design and
functionality. It is important to get it right.
David Lawrence is Head of
Capita’s Health Property team
