Into the Future: Drivers Influencing Healthcare and Healthcare Design

Kirk is a Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University where he has taught healthcare design at the graduate level since 2004. His academic research is about the relationship of evidence-based health facility design to measurable organizational performance. His five-year professional Bachelor of Architecture is from the University of Texas in Austin. His Master’s Degree in Organization Development is from Pepperdine University, and he completed a PhD in Nursing & Healthcare Innovation at Arizona State University, studying nurse movement patterns and interaction with objects in the ICU patient room.
 
A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he is board certified by the American College of Healthcare Architects with 30 years of active practice prior to joining Texas A&M. He is only the second architect advanced to Fellowship in the American College of Critical Care Medicine. He is a founding principal emeritus of Houston’s WHR Architects (now EYP Health) with healthcare projects in 20 states and eight other countries. He has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from ACHA and the ChangeMaker Award from the Center for Health Design.
 
A frequent author and presenter, he is a founding co-editor of the peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary Health Environments Research & Design Journal (HERD) now in its 12^th year. His most recent books include 2017’s Area Calculation Method for Health Care with co-editor Sarel Lavy; Rigor & Research-Informed Design: A Decade’s Advocacy in 2013; Design for Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Approach with co-author Mardelle Shepley in 2010; and Evidence-Based Design for Multiple Building Types with co-author David Watkins in 2009. “Design of Operating Theatres for Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery,” authored with Bill Rostenberg in 2015, appears in Alston, Myles & Ranucci’s, Cardiac Anaesthesia from Oxford University Press.

Lisa Sundahl Platt's firm is a Human Experience research and Innovation Management solution provider that works with US and International health, wellness, and continuing care organizations seeking to implement transformational change. Her expertise is in working with cross-functional quality and performance improvement teams to facilitate process optimization and to increase product and service delivery efficiency, safety, and outcome reliability.  Lisa has served as a research primary investigator and authored several publications related to the impact of systems on human health and well-being.

She holds a Masters of Science in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and is nearing completion of her Doctorate in Systems Science with a Health Systems Engineering focus at SUNY Binghamton. Her research concentration is on Human Factors and Population Health systems resilience. She is an ASQ Certified Six-Sigma Black Belt expert in Lean and Statistical Process Control of healthcare service and product delivery processes. Her professional background includes over twenty-five years of tenure in the field of organizational strategy, human development, and environmental planning and sustainability management. She currently holds professional licenses with the States of Tennessee and Florida Boards for Architecture, Engineering and Design regulation, Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification with The Center for Health Design, and is a US Green Building Council LEED Accredited Professional for Building Design and Construction.

Taft Cleveland is a highly skilled and creative healthcare design professional with 20 years experience in healthcare functional and space programming, strategic facilities planning, clinical transitioning services for new facilities, urban design and master planning. Taft is actively involved in topics of social justice, health equity and inclusion. He serves as one of fifteen members of SmithGroup’s global J.E.D.I. committee, working towards creating a more equitable work culture for the firm.

In 2022, Taft was recognized as Healthcare Design Magazine’s HCD 10: Industry MVP Award along with Espy Harper and Dr. Tammy Thompson for his exploration grant entitled the Community Achievement Racial Equity (C.A.R.E.) Framework. The framework provides actionable and measurable steps health systems may employ to serve leaders in addressing health equity. Through the C.A.R.E. Framework, industry members can now act on health equity design and break the cycle of health disparities by influencing access to education, healthy foods, and safe communities.