Real estate on hospital campuses has always been valuable. Just how valuable…well that is being further clarified by current building trends. One of those efforts is the consolidation of healthcare support services, and their relocation to areas away from the main hospital. Support service is a catch-all term for anything not directly linked to diagnosis,… [Read more…]
August 10, 2011
What does a healthcare facility do when it has maxed out its creativity in search of savings at its campus? After a hospital has built responsibly, and instituted sustainable initiatives like commissioning, campus-wide lighting and HVAC adjustment, and tapped out recycling—all of which offer substantial long-term savings—green energy may be a legitimate option. In Buildings magazine’s energy saving products… [Read more…]
June 13, 2011
Healthcare treatment can get pretty complicated given the technology, engineering and skill required to treat some patients. Yet, some of the most simple aspects can pose the greatest threats to a system. Case in point: when I first heard of an American Red Cross blood shortage years ago, I struggled to comprehend. Then I realized… [Read more…]
April 6, 2011
The University of Virgina’s (UVA) new medical school is a showcase in technology believed to be ubiquitous in the future: simulation. Simulation has been a learning tool employed in the past in everything from student driving to pilot and military training. Currently, simulation also presents itself in healthcare design. Healthcare designers execute mock-ups and scenarios to watch people… [Read more…]
February 7, 2011
When I initially came across this white paper from McKinsey on disease management programs (DMPs), a bell went off because it reminded me of the struggles rural healthcare providers discussed at the various rural health conferences I have attended recently. McKinsey defines a DMP as a “standardized, coordinated set of evidence-based interventions whose goals are to enhance… [Read more…]
January 12, 2011
In the Fall 2010 issue of the Health Environments Research & Design Journal, D. Kirk Hamilton wrote a well-argued piece on the lack of rigor in healthcare design. Hamilton’s article is self-effacing, forthright and nothing short of courageous for questioning not only the design profession’s service to healthcare, but his own body of work. In… [Read more…]
August 11, 2010
Historically, hospitals have been stigmatized more as places where people go to die, than places where people go to recover. Public image is hard to shake. If healthcare becomes as transparent as it needs to be to be affordable, care providers will need to actually fight for patients. As an administrator, my hospital’s image would be one… [Read more…]
July 9, 2010
Patients have patience (yes, that was intentional) for results proportional to the significance of their health issue in question. When a woman wants badly to know if she is pregnant, she will pay $13 for a home pregnancy test for an immediate result instead of waiting at least one week past her first missed period for an appointment… [Read more…]
June 2, 2010
After reading Michael Pollan’s book The Botany of Desire and then listening to him talk (Authors @ Google – highly recommended) on his recent research on food and diet, I decided I needed to know what he uncovered in his book In Defense of Food. His thesis is that the typical U.S. or “western diet” has devolved… [Read more…]
May 8, 2010
I know it is May, but Fast Company’s February issue had an interesting perspective on the next generation of prosthetics (“Super Human”). Even though the most obvious cause for replacement body parts, war, only accounts for 0.1% of the 1.7 million American amputees, the article reports prosthetics is ready to explode as a market need. … [Read more…]
April 6, 2012
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