Insights & Solutions

This process guide consists of five broad steps to assist healthcare providers and facilities in the development of a functional program that will optimize subsequent planning, design and construction efforts for proposed capital projects.

Understanding the personal abilities and unique challenges faced by aging individuals, especially those living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, better equips design teams to create supportive care and living spaces. Changes that can be credited to dementia are noticeably different from the changes typical of normal aging, but both can occur at the same time. 

Design interventions to improve well-being for patients with behavioral and mental health (BMH) conditions will often have impacts on other populations, as well (e.g., staff, visitors, non-BMH patients who use the same facility). This tool will help you consider those broader impacts and incorporate them into an evidence-based process for a universal design approach.  

The Safety Risk Assessment (SRA) Toolkit is:

a proactive process that can mitigate risk a discussion prompt for a multidisciplinary team an evidence-based design (EBD) approach to identify solutions.

The SRA targets six areas of safety (infections, falls, medication errors, security, injuries of behavioral health, and patient handling) as required in the FGI Guidelines.

WHY USE THIS SRA?

Built environment strategies can help healthcare organizations and communities promote healthy living, reduce obesity, and prevent chronic disease. Given the increasing focus on community health and preventive medicine, it is important that healthcare organizations and the communities they serve incorporate built environment strategies that result in healthy behavior.

With support from the Kresge Foundation, The Center for Health Design has developed a standardized Community Health Center Facility Evaluation tool that supports design for population health. The tool is intended to support both design and post-occupancy evaluation of built projects with respect to population health goals.