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March 9, 2017
The Scoop
 Ready to Welcome Spring
It's amazing how fast time flies! The Environments for Aging Expo & Conference has wrapped up for another year and on Sunday, March 12, we will "spring forward", kicking off daylight savings time. At The Center, we have put together several spring offers we hope you will take advantage of, such as:
Included in this newsletter are some of our latest resources and tools, providing you with knowledge that's actionable, knowledge you can quickly incorporate into your projects, along with the latest industry news to see what others are doing.
Thanks to our partners, J+J Flooring Group and Steelcase Health, the resources listed below are available free to all.
The resources and tools we provide are meant to be shared - make sure to pass them along to your team and as always, let me know what tools and resources have been helpful to you in the past, and we'll feature them in our future newsletters.
Be well,
Debra Levin, EDAC
President and CEO
Industry News Briefs
Facility Design Can Support Autism Treatment
In any given year, 1 in 68 Americans are diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of these are young children who will face a lifetime of trying to acclimate to a world that will often seem hostile, if not dangerous and frightening. As the prevalence, awareness and diagnosis of autism have grown over the past 20 years, the design of new models for treatment has not kept pace. As healthcare designers, we believe that new and innovative architectural facility designs can significantly enhance the quality of treatment if these facilities are designed with the advance knowledge of how specific environmental factors affect the behavior and well-being of persons with ASD.
Behavioral Healthcare Executive, more ...
3 Patient Engagement Programs from 3 Hospital CEOs
Telemedicine appointments in the emergency department, nurses who visit patients in their homes after discharge, and patient-family councils who weigh in on potential improvement projects are just a few of the ways hospitals across the country are driving patient engagement.
While healthcare organizations may take different approaches, they all share a common goal: to improve care by partnering with patients on healthcare options and treatment decisions. In an interview with Forbes, leading hospital CEOs discussed some of their strategies to better engage patients in their care. Fierce Healthcare, more . .
Future-Proof Hospitals: Planning, Adapting to Rapid Change in Healthcare Design
The Hill-Burton Act was enacted in 1946 to increase the supply of hospital beds by providing construction grants to nonprofit entities. It was very successful: Between 1947 and, when funding ended in 1970, about a half-million additional hospital beds were added. What the act didn’t, and couldn’t, anticipate were medical advances that slowly rendered the Hill-Burton version of the inpatient hospital virtually obsolete.
Hill-Burton hospitals were a major improvement over what existed: cottage hospitals and facilities with open wards, for example. Many of the new hospitals offered double-bedded rooms and better operating and diagnostic facilities. Medical Construction & Design , more . . .
The Transformation of Outpatient Healthcare Design
Hospitals across the country are moving into uncharted territory as healthcare delivery in the U.S. is being reinvented. Hospitals and patients have been affected by the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare reform that rolled out nationwide in 2012. Hospitals are now faced with shrinking reimbursements and patients are seeing high deductibles. Couple this with the rise in chronic conditions, which typically do not require overnight stays, but are based on long-term treatments, and we see a trend of empty patient beds, creating lower occupancy in many hospitals.
These higher costs and low occupancy rates have forced healthcare facilities to rethink how healthcare is delivered in their community.
Building Design & Construction, more...
Healthcare Designers Take a Holistic Approach
Health-care facilities can be stressful places for patients and visitors, with depressing waiting rooms, rows of uncomfortable seating, a blaring television. But designers of some medical spaces are remedying the situation.
A more holistic approach includes mood-elevating colors and artwork. Chairs are angled to look out the window. Screens offer calming nature scenes instead of newsfeeds. There's softer overhead lighting and skylights. Sometimes, diffusers even waft a gentle breeze of lavender or citrus to mask the harsh scents of disinfectants and medicines. T&D, more . . .
The Center’s work is made possible with the funding support of our Partner:
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