New insights recently released from Steelcase Health underscore the importance of family participation during a patient’s hospital stay and highlight how patient room design can impact family experiences and influence patient satisfaction and outcomes. The company’s findings also reveal that, in most current patient room settings, many family members still have significant unmet needs.
Well-designed healthcare environments can be a powerful tool in supporting a family’s ability to meaningfully engage in their loved one’s care, but many hospitals have yet to fully harness their spaces to maximize this engagement,” says Michelle Ossmann, MSN, PhD, Director of Healthcare Environments at Steelcase Health.
Healthcare environments are often not designed to support the roles that family members play in a patient’s journey. Steelcase Health researchers identified five key issues that can affect family wellbeing and engagement in a patient room:
- Family members can be unintentionally blocked from critical communications.
- Difficult sleeping conditions.
- No place to share a meal.
- Uncomfortable hospitality environment
- Nowhere to plug in
The company’s findings show that family members need intuitive, welcoming and hosted environments that both support fundamental needs, such as sleeping, sharing meals and working, and assists them in productively partnering with clinicians to meet their loved one’s healthcare needs.
The findings from Steelcase Health bolster research on current healthcare trends such as patient and provider satisfaction as quality indicators, the focus on patient-and-family-centered-care, and the adoption of patient and family advisory boards and councils at hospitals and health systems.
For more information on the unmet needs of patient families, click here.
Related Stories
Healthcare Facilities | Mar 9, 2020
Mobile wayfinding platform helps patients, visitors navigate convoluted health campuses
Gozio Health uses a robot to roam hospital campuses to capture data and create detailed maps of the building spaces and campus.
Healthcare Facilities | Feb 28, 2020
Valleywise Health Medical Center breaks ground in Phoenix
Cuningham Group Architecture and EYP designed the project.
Healthcare Facilities | Feb 27, 2020
Milieu: Creating restorative environments in behavioral health
It’s time to take a closer look at the collection of therapeutic settings known as milieu.
Healthcare Facilities | Feb 11, 2020
New York City’s largest freestanding cancer center opens
The building creates a model for 21st century cancer care.
Healthcare Facilities | Feb 3, 2020
China builds 645,000-sf coronavirus hospital in 10 days
The project began construction on Jan. 23.
Healthcare Facilities | Jan 30, 2020
The complex dance of healthcare transitioning
Hospital employees, though excited about technological advancements, are expected to navigate a new workplace and care for their patients at the same time, all while training on new equipment and navigating a new building.
Healthcare Facilities | Jan 15, 2020
Top 4 healthcare design trends that will shape medical planning in the 2020s
For patients and healthcare staff, these developments will be most evident in new tools, such as robotic surgical tables and intra-hospital delivery drones, that improve healthcare services and outcomes.
Architects | Jan 6, 2020
Merger expands HED’s presence in SoCal
Puchlik Design Associates, its new addition, specializes in healthcare design.
Healthcare Facilities | Nov 26, 2019
Grand Rapids, Mich., is striving to emerge as a health research and innovation space
Michigan State University is part of a development team for a new life sciences building.
Healthcare Facilities | Nov 6, 2019
A new hospital tower will serve women and children exclusively in the expanding San Antonio market
This $500 million project represents the next phase in the hospital system’s capital improvement program.