Strategic Hospital Room Design: Improving Your Environments through Better Data

If you’ve ever spent any time as patient in a hospital room, you can recall how your surroundings affected you—for better or for worse. The effects of hospital room design on patients can be profound, according to a New York Times report on specially-designed rooms at the University Medical Center of Princeton. These rooms included comfortable features such as:

• Outdoor views
• Medication dispensed to patient-specific lock-boxes, instead of by floor
• Fold-out guest sofas
• Sinks (for medical hand washing) discreetly tucked out of direct sight
• Extra space for visitors

The results were pretty amazing. Not only did patients report a stunning 99% satisfaction score, but they also asked for nearly a third less pain medication than patients in other rooms. Just as important are the potential safety benefits of a well-designed hospital room. Handholds in the right places can do much to prevent falls, for instance, while the use of non-shiny floor finishes can help individuals with glare-related vision problems. Even the choice of artwork style and subjects on the walls can make a direct impact on patients’ quality of experience.

Imagine how the right mix of safety event reporting and patient satisfaction information, as offered by ActionCue CI‘s integrated solutions, could help you optimize your own hospital rooms. You might find that certain room designs show a higher incidence of falls, leading you to change the flooring material, handhold placement and other features for the better. Even coming to an agreement on the nature of those changes becomes easier when you’re able to prepare easy-to-read staff reports for meetings. If certain medical mistakes seem to be occurring more frequently in specific rooms or areas, you can determine where you need to make adjustments. With ActionCue CI, all of these insights can be readily available. Contact us today for more information.