The Hospital Room of the Future: A patient-centered design could reduce infections, falls, errors—and ultimately costs.

The hospital room may be due for a checkup.

In the past, we have relied on the implementation of modularization to reduce the overall cost of put in place construction.  Our first modular hospital is currently being built in Delaware as we speak.  One look at this advanced patient room of the future and you can identify that modular concepts are everywhere.  From the patient ribbon, headwall, footwall, caregiver hub and entry workstation, most of this can be built off sight further standardizing the built process.  What’s most interesting is that we are doing this for the health of the patient and not just for the cost of construction.  Read on to see more about the hospital room of the future.     

Doctors and nurses, architects and designers all say the room setting has an important but largely neglected role to play in the delivery of quality care and outcomes.

Consider infections. One out of every 20 patients admitted to a hospital picks up an infection while there, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These infections can be serious and deadly, and they cost the U.S. $10 billion a year.

But recent studies indicate that at least half can be avoided. And the design of patient rooms is one of the best places to start.

The hospital room has changed little since the post-World War II years, when there was a shift to semiprivate rooms from wards. But even then, the patient wasn't central to the plan. Now, the patient room of the future is being designed as a safe, private, comfortable place conducive to healing.

"With all the knowledge we've gained," says Douglas Wood, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, "we can increasingly create an environment in the hospital to minimize the transmission of bacteria, increase the circulation of air, and reduce pain, discomfort and poor clinical outcomes."

Hospital officials from across the U.S. and abroad have traveled to New York to see the prototype patient room shown here. Designed by NXT Health, a nonprofit in New York, and funded by the Department of Defense, the room is designed to reduce infections, falls, errors—and ultimately costs. Click on the graphic for a look at how it would do so.

A patient-centered design could reduce infections, falls, errors—and ultimately costs.

Source: WSJ.com