Health care environments can and are being designed to prevent injury, minimize human error, and actually promote improved health and safety. This article shows risk managers how evidence-based design is reducing medication error, staff injury, infection rates, patient falls, and more. Research knowledge can contribute to effective design solutions by simply clarifying a safety problem so solutions can be sought; it can inform the design process with potential solutions; or it can be part of a structured process where new research knowledge is created. This article shares specific examples of the types of research that can inform designing for a safer physical environment. A case study shows how one project in two phases benefited from engaging initially in a general way and later, in a highly structured process, to integrate the evidence to improve design for safety.
Full article here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jhrm.21364
Written by Tom Clark FAIA, EDAC, David Sine DrBE, ARM, CSP, CPHRM
First published: May 2019 © American Society for Healthcare Risk Management of the American Hospital Association