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March 21, 2019
The Scoop
Getting Organized with Spring Cleaning
Spring cleaning brings an opportunity to get organized in a new and fresh way. And with that organization often comes increased productivity. At The Center, we want to make finding and using our resources easy for our community, allowing you to be more productive with your time. To that end, we hope you will take advantage of our upcoming educational offerings:
I hope to see you at this year's Environments for Aging Expo & Conference in Salt Lake City, UT on April 7-10. It's three days filled with seeing old friends, enjoying keynote presentations, workshops, walking tours and making discoveries in an expo hall filled with the latest products and ideas in design for aging lifestyles. And this year, I am personally looking forward to honoring the late Robert N. Mayer, of the Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild Foundation with the Changemaker Award. A pioneer in eldercare reform both at the policy and local level, his work included eight national regulatory task forces and a wide range of initiatives seeking to improve the quality of life and to enhance the experience of residents, patients and families in long-term care communities.
As always, I hope to also see you at our upcoming Behavioral Health Strategic Design workshop or any of the upcoming Health Design Insights Networking regional events! You can keep track of all our events, live and virtual here.
Be well,
Debra Levin, Hon. FASID, EDAC
President and CEO
Industry News Briefs
Understanding Behavioral Health Design Imperative
Over the past two years, The Center for Health Design has become more focused on understanding best practices for behavioral health design and building a body of strategic tools and resources for the industry. As part of this initiative, we held our second Pebble-in-Practice workshop on behavioral health facility design last year in Baltimore.
According to a presentation by Array Architects, one in five adults has experienced a mental health issue and one in 20 Americans lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. Half of all mental health disorders show up before a person turns 14; three-quarters before the age of 24. However, less than 20 percent of children and adolescents with mental health problems receive the treatment they need. Add to these figures a growing suicide rate and an opioid addiction epidemic that continues to be on the rise, and it’s clear why an understanding of how to design safe spaces for those struggling with mental health issues is important today.
Healthcare Design, more. . .
Technology Changing Healthcare Design Process
Technology plays a big role in our everyday lives. It is often a disruptive force that can change the way we function as a society and conduct business. This is also having a profound effect on the healthcare sector, enhancing the patient experience.
Patients are using technology to address their healthcare needs in ways that we have never seen before. They are going online to self-diagnose their ailments, and researching potential over-the-counter treatment options, as well as using it to choose a clinician and healthcare facility. Wearables and personal assistive devices are at an all-time high. The Apple Watch was recently announced as “the most-used heart rate monitor in the world” and is racing to become the personal biometric device of choice — helping individuals to warn of potential health threats or monitor known issues.
Medical Construction & Design, more . . .
Healthcare Design Can Support Data Security
Architects can help healthcare facilities overcome security challenges with design features, according to an article on the HMC Architectswebsite.
For instance, to prevent access to data storage and other personnel-only areas, architects must separate them from community spaces through improved wayfinding and use of partitions, privacy glass, and other design features.
Clear lines of sight in common and secure areas allow healthcare staff and security personnel to more quickly identify an intrusion.
Enhanced check-in process with patients enter their information into a data-secured kiosk surrounded by privacy screens can also enhance security. No words are spoken, so there’s no risk of eavesdropping.
HMC Architects, more . . .
When Disaster Strikes: Healthcare Resiliency Special Report
From outbreaks of deadly viruses to devastating super storms to terrorist attacks, hospitals are on the front lines when natural or man-made crises hit the communities they serve. The result is an incredibly complex challenge for this industry: how to build healthcare facilities that are designed to withstand myriad what-if scenarios. In this special report, Healthcare Design digs into the complex wrinkles of planning, designing, and building for resiliency and disaster preparedness, offering takeaways on approaches that will remove some of the guess work from responding to the unknown.
This series of articles digs into topics including risk assessment and data analysis techniques, case studies on projects built for resiliency and those that survived disaster scenarios, and various regulatory and strategy considerations. Disasters will happen, and our healthcare infrastructure can be ready.
Healthcare Design, more. . .
The Center for Health Design would like to thank our
thought leadership partner:
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