Healthcare Design - November 2014 - 44

"What clients are doing as a result [of the outpatient shift] is circling back and, with the ability to
either streamline or decant some of their outpatient
and nonclinical services and free up real estate, investing in improving the
inpatient experience and
environment," says John
Rodenbeck, a principal
at Perkins Eastman (New
York).

hold a lot of water today, as the Affordable Care
Act ties both outcomes and HCAHPS scores to
reimbursements. And while the outpatient transition will likely reduce future bed needs, it also
translates to the expectation that patients who do
require hospital admission in years to come will be
much more acute than today's inpatients.
And that's just what we know. As technology
begins to play a larger role in care delivery and
mobile health solutions continue to be adopted,

There are plenty
of reasons for it, too.
For starters, market competition is pushing the
need for wholesale adoption of private patient
rooms, especially as patients have more choice in
where they receive care. Private rooms also come
with a number of other proven benefits, such as
reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs)
and increasing patient satisfaction-factors that

patient rooms must be designed with adaptability
in mind and an eye on a future that's anything but
clear.
"The patient room is where you need to get
everything right," says Ana Pinto Alexander, principal, senior vice president, and director of healthcare interior architecture at HKS (Indianapolis).

The expectation is that patients
who require hospital admission in
years to come will be much more
acute than today's inpatients.

HCDmagazine.com 11.14

The baseline
The starting point for almost all patient room
designs is a single-occupancy space. "I think
we're making great progress," says Cyndi
McCullough, evidence-based design director for
HDR (Omaha, Neb.). "Every project I've worked
on involves either renovating some rooms to make
private rooms, adding new, or a combination of
both. It's at the top of the list for most everyone."
While the transition isn't as easy for systems
with tight urban sites, the majority of providers are
better able to, for example, renovate a 200-bed
double-occupancy facility into a 100-bed singleoccupancy facility than they were prior to reform.
"With more procedures going into the outpatient
arena, it's offering more real estate within the hospital to either convert or build private rooms for a
lot less expensive price tags. They're not going for
higher-bedded facilities," Rodenbeck says.
Meanwhile, the average length of patient stays
has historically grown shorter. And with patients

SCOTT WANG PHOTOGRAPHY (ST. MARY'S); HALKIN MASON PHOTOGRAPHY (EINSTEIN)

Right: St. Mary's Good Samaritan
Hospital in Greensboro, Ga.,
designed by HKS in conjunction with
Earl Architects, was completed in
December 2013. The 25-bed critical
access hospital features all private
inpatient rooms and incorporates
generous natural daylighting and
views of nature. Below: The main
priorities for the patient room
design at Einstein Medical Center
Montgomery included maximizing
space around the bed and providing
visual connectivity to the sprawling
rural site.

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Healthcare Design - November 2014

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