The number of patient care hours devoted to critical care treatment in US emergency departments (ED) has increased dramatically over the past decade with projections of continued increase at alarming rates into the future.
 
This webinar highlights the University of Michigan Medical Center’s journey to address this challenge. In 2012, their hospital and ED leadership hypothesized that creating a dedicated unit in the ED for the provision of extended critical care would help meet some of these challenges, which in turn may improve care delivery and patient outcomes. Pre-determined guiding principles were carefully followed throughout the design and build phases. From start to finish, the project utilized key lean facilities design principles including the use of full-scale mock-ups. This led to a finished build that was completed ahead of schedule, under budget and with no significant change orders.
 
By engaging in a purpose-specific design with extensive efforts dedicated to functional space with an emphasis on efficient, effective and cutting-edge critical care, the goal was to set a national precedent for the provision of ED-based critical care.  Analysis of the 5-year post-occupancy experience further emphasizes the successful precedent on which similar units within peer institutions will likely be based in the future.