Memorial Examiner - News
Mock hospital rooms give users design power
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| Kurt Neubek (left), project architect, leads staff members of Texas Children’s Hospital through a rough mock-up of the proposed patient room for the new West Campus pediatric hospital. Giving their feedback are (from left) Mary Jo Andre, vice president of quality, safety and outcomes management; Terry Meaux, assistant director, accreditation; and Cathey Stewart, accreditation specialist. Michelle Riley-Brown (second from right), assistant vice president, West Campus, observes. |
Memorial Examiner
By RUSTY GRAHAM
On the unfinished 18th floor of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Feigin Center sits a lone patient room, its row of windows looking south towards Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome.
The room’s central feature is a hospital bed. Also in the room are a couch and family area, hookups and storage for medical equipment, and a bathroom.
It’s a fairly typical patient room, one that could be found in just about any hospital anywhere.
Only its not typical. Not at all.
A closer look reveals that the bed and the couch are the only “real” items in the room. Everything else is cardboard or paper, mock-ups that can be easily moved or changed.
A low-tech approach to a sophisticated design process, the stakes are about as high as they come.
Lessons learned on the 18th floor will be built and practiced at Texas Children’s Hospital’s West Campus, under construction now on the Katy Freeway at Barker Cypress in West Houston.
The campus has been planned based on evidence-based design, which uses empirical data to drive design decisions. The mock-ups are part of that process, where designers learn how practitioners, patients and family will use the rooms.
Evidence-based design is a growing moving nationally, especially in health care facilities.
“Evidence-based design asks how the built environment affects patient care and caregivers,” said Kurt Neubeck, project architect and associate principal of the firm PageSoutherlandPage.
The mock-ups have been essential in the design process, said Neubek.
“A lot of (design) things made sense in two dimensions,” said Neubeck. “The mock-ups proved that changes were needed.”
Architects and designers toured hospital professionals — doctors, nurses, technicians — and members of the family and children’s advisory boards through the mocked-up rooms. What the designers learned astounded them, said Neubek.
Things as simple as the placement of light switches and electrical outlets made a difference. Letting the family have space on a whiteboard was important.
Take the light switches in patients’ rooms, for example. The main light, an examination light for professionals, is bright and over the bed . But what if the patient is sleeping? And the light switches are placed in close proximity to one another, and the wrong one is turned on?
It’s a problem not usually considered but one that’s easily solved, said Neubeck. The first switch one sees upon entering a room is the soft-lights switch, while the exam-light switch is around a wall near the white board, where medical professionals work.
Likewise, electrical outlets are placed higher on walls so that professionals don’t have to bend as far to plug and unplug equipment. Gas hookups are spaced out a little more than normal, because professionals said that it makes their jobs easier.
The rooms are designed with families in mind as much as patient care.
Consider the couches, which are really day beds. A lot of attention has been given to not only the couch as a seating area, but also how easily it converts to a bed.
“I don’t know how many couches and days beds we’ve tried in here,” said Sadonie DeKunder Dickson, senior facilities project manager at Texas Children’s. Indeed, several of the rejected sofas sit outside the mocked-up room.
The family area is very important, since families of sick children spend a lot of time in the patient’s room.
Besides an easy and comfortable foldout bed, there’s a wardrobe for hanging clothes. There’s space beside the wardrobe for strollers and other items a family might have. There’s a lockable drawer for valuables. There’s a desk area.
The television is placed for not only the patient’s viewing but the family’s as well. There will be a built-in video game system.
“We provide family-centered care,” said Michelle Riley-Brown, assistant vice president of Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. “We provide the medical care. The family is the expert on their child.”
Even the bathrooms are mocked up and have been improved based on suggestions. Parents told designers that they wanted tubs rather than showers to make bathing easier for small children.
When complete, the West Campus will have 96 in-patient rooms, each with a view of nature — a lake, grass, trees — which studies show facilitate patients’ recoveries, reduce need for pain medication and other healing benefits.
Each floor at the West Campus will have a family lounge for respite and a child life specialist who can help both patients and their siblings who visit cope with their stress and fears, said Riley-Brown.
A simulated operating room will allow specialists to explain to patients what will happen when they’re in surgery.
“A child can put their teddy bear on the table and pretend,” said Riley-Brown.
Examination rooms have also been mocked-up and toured. By design, families enter exam rooms by one door and medical professionals from another.
Medical staff enter from a central core where professional and “housekeeping” functions — things like trash and medical waste disposal — take place.
Exam rooms are larger than normal to accommodate families, and there’s a television in each room, both to distract patients if necessary, and to entertain siblings while waiting on care.
Nothing is left to chance in evidence-based design — even which wall has the clock.
Neubeck said that designers originally placed the clock on the wall at the foot of the bed, but moved it to a side wall..
“But nurses told us that they stand at the side of the bed when attending a patient,” he said. “They want to just look straight up at the clock, not have to turn their heads.”
The room’s central feature is a hospital bed. Also in the room are a couch and family area, hookups and storage for medical equipment, and a bathroom.
It’s a fairly typical patient room, one that could be found in just about any hospital anywhere.
Only its not typical. Not at all.
A closer look reveals that the bed and the couch are the only “real” items in the room. Everything else is cardboard or paper, mock-ups that can be easily moved or changed.
A low-tech approach to a sophisticated design process, the stakes are about as high as they come.
Lessons learned on the 18th floor will be built and practiced at Texas Children’s Hospital’s West Campus, under construction now on the Katy Freeway at Barker Cypress in West Houston.
The campus has been planned based on evidence-based design, which uses empirical data to drive design decisions. The mock-ups are part of that process, where designers learn how practitioners, patients and family will use the rooms.
Evidence-based design is a growing moving nationally, especially in health care facilities.
“Evidence-based design asks how the built environment affects patient care and caregivers,” said Kurt Neubeck, project architect and associate principal of the firm PageSoutherlandPage.
The mock-ups have been essential in the design process, said Neubek.
“A lot of (design) things made sense in two dimensions,” said Neubeck. “The mock-ups proved that changes were needed.”
Architects and designers toured hospital professionals — doctors, nurses, technicians — and members of the family and children’s advisory boards through the mocked-up rooms. What the designers learned astounded them, said Neubek.
Things as simple as the placement of light switches and electrical outlets made a difference. Letting the family have space on a whiteboard was important.
Take the light switches in patients’ rooms, for example. The main light, an examination light for professionals, is bright and over the bed . But what if the patient is sleeping? And the light switches are placed in close proximity to one another, and the wrong one is turned on?
It’s a problem not usually considered but one that’s easily solved, said Neubeck. The first switch one sees upon entering a room is the soft-lights switch, while the exam-light switch is around a wall near the white board, where medical professionals work.
Likewise, electrical outlets are placed higher on walls so that professionals don’t have to bend as far to plug and unplug equipment. Gas hookups are spaced out a little more than normal, because professionals said that it makes their jobs easier.
The rooms are designed with families in mind as much as patient care.
Consider the couches, which are really day beds. A lot of attention has been given to not only the couch as a seating area, but also how easily it converts to a bed.
“I don’t know how many couches and days beds we’ve tried in here,” said Sadonie DeKunder Dickson, senior facilities project manager at Texas Children’s. Indeed, several of the rejected sofas sit outside the mocked-up room.
The family area is very important, since families of sick children spend a lot of time in the patient’s room.
Besides an easy and comfortable foldout bed, there’s a wardrobe for hanging clothes. There’s space beside the wardrobe for strollers and other items a family might have. There’s a lockable drawer for valuables. There’s a desk area.
The television is placed for not only the patient’s viewing but the family’s as well. There will be a built-in video game system.
“We provide family-centered care,” said Michelle Riley-Brown, assistant vice president of Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. “We provide the medical care. The family is the expert on their child.”
Even the bathrooms are mocked up and have been improved based on suggestions. Parents told designers that they wanted tubs rather than showers to make bathing easier for small children.
When complete, the West Campus will have 96 in-patient rooms, each with a view of nature — a lake, grass, trees — which studies show facilitate patients’ recoveries, reduce need for pain medication and other healing benefits.
Each floor at the West Campus will have a family lounge for respite and a child life specialist who can help both patients and their siblings who visit cope with their stress and fears, said Riley-Brown.
A simulated operating room will allow specialists to explain to patients what will happen when they’re in surgery.
“A child can put their teddy bear on the table and pretend,” said Riley-Brown.
Examination rooms have also been mocked-up and toured. By design, families enter exam rooms by one door and medical professionals from another.
Medical staff enter from a central core where professional and “housekeeping” functions — things like trash and medical waste disposal — take place.
Exam rooms are larger than normal to accommodate families, and there’s a television in each room, both to distract patients if necessary, and to entertain siblings while waiting on care.
Nothing is left to chance in evidence-based design — even which wall has the clock.
Neubeck said that designers originally placed the clock on the wall at the foot of the bed, but moved it to a side wall..
“But nurses told us that they stand at the side of the bed when attending a patient,” he said. “They want to just look straight up at the clock, not have to turn their heads.”
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