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 | Nov 5, 2019
UNC Health Care’s Surgical Tower set to begin construction
Skanska USA will build the project in three phases.
Healthcare Facilities | Oct 4, 2019
Heart failure clinics are keeping more patients out of emergency rooms
An example of this building trend recently opened at Beaumont Hospital near Ann Arbor, Mich.
Healthcare Facilities | Oct 1, 2019
Medical offices are filling space vacated by retail
Healthcare developers and providers like the locations, traffic, and parking these spaces offer.
Healthcare Facilities | Aug 23, 2019
5 converging trends for healthcare's future
Our solutions to both today’s and tomorrow’s challenges lie at the convergence of technologies, industries, and types of care.
Giants 400 | Aug 16, 2019
2019 Healthcare Giants Report: The ‘smart hospital’ is on the horizon
These buildings perform functions like a medical practitioner. This and more healthcare sector trends from Building Design+Construction's 2019 Giants 300 Report.
Healthcare Facilities | Aug 5, 2019
New Heart and Vascular Tower set to open at Atrium Health NorthEast
Robins & Morton provided construction services for the project.
Healthcare Facilities | Aug 1, 2019
Best of healthcare design for 2019
A VA rehab center in Palo Alto, Calif., and a tuberculosis hospital in Haiti are among five healthcare facilities to receive 2019 Healthcare Design Awards from AIA's Academy of Architecture for Health.
Healthcare Facilities | Jul 18, 2019
A 75-year-old hospital in Minnesota completes its latest makeover
A 25-month project includes three separate additions.
Healthcare Facilities | Jul 15, 2019
Can a kids’ healthcare space teach, entertain, and heal?
Standard building requirements don’t have to be boring. Here’s how you can inject whimsical touches into everyday design features.
Healthcare Facilities | Jul 15, 2019
Hospitals are moving into their communities
Below are five strategies to improve access and patient experience.