“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
In the intricate tapestry of healthcare, where every thread represents a life, hospital design is the loom upon which the fabric of healing is woven. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about creating spaces that promote patient-centred care, safety, and comfort. Statistics bear testimony to the significance of patient-centred design:
According to a Press Ganey report, 75% of patients consider the physical comfort of a room as an important factor in their hospital experience.
A study in the Journal of Hospital Administration revealed that patient satisfaction is closely linked to hospital design and layout, impacting HCAHPS scores and overall hospital reputation.
Let’s embark on a journey through the process of optimizing hospital design for patient-centred care, uncovering its benefits, and exploring Astron’s specialization in this transformative field.
The Blueprint: Steps in Optimizing Hospital Design
Empathetic Space Planning: Patient-centred design begins with empathy. Hospitals should be intuitively organized to reduce patient and staff stress. This involves thoughtful placement of departments, minimizing long walks, and ensuring easy access to essential facilities.
Inclusive Design: To cater to diverse patient needs, inclusive design principles should be applied. This means creating spaces that accommodate people of all abilities, including those with disabilities, to ensure equitable access and care.
Healing Environment: Patient rooms should be designed as healing environments, utilizing natural light, calming colours, and noise-reducing features. This nurturing atmosphere aids in the patient’s psychological well-being, supporting the healing process.
Technological Integration: The integration of cutting-edge technology is a must. Telemedicine, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and smart patient monitoring systems enable efficient care delivery and streamline processes.
Ergonomic and Comfortable Furnishings: Patients spend a significant amount of time in hospital rooms. Ergonomically designed furnishings not only enhance patient comfort but also improve staff efficiency. Adjustable beds and well-placed outlets for devices are just a couple of examples.
Safety and Infection Control: Patient safety is paramount. Hospital design should include infection control measures such as adequate isolation rooms and hand hygiene stations. Ergonomic design can also reduce the risk of falls.
The Benefits of Patient-Centred Design
Improved Patient Outcomes: Patient-centred design has been linked to reduced complications, shorter hospital stays, and improved overall health outcomes. Patients feel more in control of their recovery.
Enhanced Safety: Hospitals designed with a focus on patient safety reduce the risk of medical errors and falls, contributing to improved overall safety.
Increased Satisfaction: Satisfied patients are more likely to adhere to treatment plans, reducing readmission rates and healthcare costs.
Attracting and Retaining Talent: Hospitals that prioritize patient-centred care and offer an appealing work environment are better positioned to attract and retain top healthcare professionals.
Astron’s Specialization in Hospital Design
Astron Group, a trailblazer in healthcare consulting and design, specializes in creating hospital spaces that prioritize patient-centred care. With a commitment to improving healthcare environments, Astron focuses on:
Incorporating Evidence-Based Design: We at Astron leverage research and data-driven insights to inform our design decisions, ensuring that every element of a hospital contributes to the well-being of patients and staff.
Customization: We understand that every healthcare facility is unique. Our designs are tailored to the specific needs and objectives of each hospital, promoting patient-centred care at its core.
Sustainability: We integrate sustainability into our designs, making healthcare facilities not just healing spaces but also environmentally responsible ones.
Innovation: We embrace cutting-edge technologies, from smart patient rooms to efficient workflow solutions, to create healthcare spaces that are both future-ready and patient-centric.
Collaboration: We collaborate closely with healthcare professionals, administrators, and patients themselves to ensure that our designs truly reflect the needs and desires of the people who use these spaces.
In Conclusion
Patient-centred care isn’t a buzzword; it’s a commitment to humanity. The transformation of a hospital from a blueprint to a place of healing is a journey that holds the power to save lives, improve outcomes, and elevate the healthcare experience for all. By optimizing hospital design for patient-centred care, we are not merely creating spaces; we are shaping the future of healthcare, one compassionate step at a time.
As Mahatma Gandhi wisely noted, losing ourselves in the service of others is the ultimate path to finding our true purpose. In the case of healthcare, that service begins with thoughtful and patient-centric design.
“Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.” – Max McKeown
In the wake of recent global events, the healthcare industry is undergoing a profound transformation, with hospital design at the forefront of this evolution. The COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and other unforeseen emergencies have underscored the critical importance of preparedness and flexibility in healthcare infrastructure. As we stand at the crossroads of the future, it is increasingly clear that hospital design must evolve to meet the challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead.
Designing for Resilience
The hospitals of the future will be defined by their resilience. Resilience in hospital design means the ability to withstand, adapt to, and rapidly recover from various shocks and stresses, whether they are caused by a global health crisis, extreme weather events, natural and manmade disasters or other emergencies. This resilience will be built upon several key pillars:
1. Modular and Adaptable Spaces: Hospitals will have to incorporate modular design principles, allowing spaces to be quickly reconfigured to meet changing demands. Flexible patient rooms, adaptable treatment areas, and convertible wards will have to become standard features.
2. Telemedicine Integration: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, and the hospitals of the future will seamlessly integrate telehealth capabilities. Design will include dedicated telemedicine suites and enhanced IT infrastructure for remote consultations.
3. Infection Control: Hospitals will prioritize infection control in their design, with enhanced ventilation systems, isolation rooms, and protective barriers. The layout will facilitate efficient patient flow while minimizing the risk of cross-contamination.
4. Surge Capacity: The ability to rapidly expand hospital capacity will be integral. This includes the construction of temporary field hospitals, surge wings, or adaptable spaces within the existing facility to accommodate a sudden influx of patients.
5. Sustainable Resilience: Hospitals will increasingly embrace sustainable design practices to enhance resilience. This includes energy-efficient systems, renewable energy sources, and disaster-resistant construction materials.
Technology Integration
Advanced technologies will play a pivotal role in the hospitals of the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) will assist in patient care, diagnostics, and hospital management. Robotics will take on a more prominent role in tasks like disinfection and delivery. Remote monitoring and wearable devices will allow healthcare providers to track patients’ health in real-time, reducing the need for in-person visits.
Community Engagement
Hospitals will be deeply integrated into their communities. They will not only serve as centres for healthcare but also as hubs for disaster response and community support. Engaging with local communities in emergency preparedness and response will be a central tenet of hospital design.
Reskilling and Training
As hospital design evolves, so too will the skills and training of healthcare professionals. Continuous education and training will be essential to adapt to new technologies, protocols, and emergency response strategies.
Digitalization of Supply Chain
Hospital supply chains will become highly digitalized and automated, utilizing technologies like RFID tracking and AI-driven demand forecasting. This ensures efficient inventory management, reducing shortages during emergencies. Hospitals will increasingly prioritize local sourcing and on-site storage of critical supplies to mitigate disruptions caused by global crises, ensuring a more reliable supply chain.
Emergency Response:
Hospital designs will prioritize flexibility, with modular layouts and adaptable spaces. This enables quick transformation to surge capacity during emergencies, accommodating a larger number of patients. Future hospital designs will seamlessly integrate telemedicine infrastructure. This allows for remote triage and care, reducing the burden on physical facilities during crises and improving resource allocation.
The Road Ahead
The challenges of the future are dynamic and unpredictable. Therefore, the hospitals of the future must be equally dynamic and adaptable. Hospital design will evolve not as a response to a single crisis but as a reflection of our collective learning from a multitude of challenges. It will be driven by the unwavering commitment to provide the best care to every patient, under any circumstance.
In this journey of evolution, expertise from leaders like Astron in hospital planning and design will illuminate the path forward. As Winston Churchill wisely noted, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” The hospitals of the future, crafted with dedication and guided by experience, will stand as beacons of resilience, offering healing and hope to all who need it, no matter what challenges tomorrow may bring.
Creating remote locations to expand access to health care requires a new type of design strategy.Once concentrated in the central district, medical services are now being relocated to shopping malls, clinics, health centers, private homes, schools and corporate premises.
People are more likely to seek medical care if it is convenient, regardless of whether they live in rural, suburban or urban areas. By identifying underdeveloped market segments, healthcare organizations can install entrance doors to the system and refer patients for additional services as needed.
Thanks to this convenience-oriented migration, health care providers, with the help of top healthcare consulting firms in India, are proposing to improve care and health for an increasingly diverse population.
Driving factors
Several market factors contribute to the migration of health services and new approaches to clinic design:
Economy. As more people gain access to insurance, health care organizations are setting up new clinics and outpatient facilities to meet the growing demand for health services and programs.
Technologies. Telemedicine is changing the way patients are treated, providing remote diagnosis and treatment using a laptop or tablet. Patients and medical organizations have undoubtedly embraced this new technology, and an increasing number of clinics have added telemedicine services.
Comprehensive medical care. New care models are also reforming the medical landscape. The collaborating medical team includes primary care physicians, nurses, health professionals, health coaches, and other practitioners.
Continuous care. The field of health care is moving from a fee-for-service model to a fee-for-outcome model, with a greater emphasis on preventive and rehabilitative care. To achieve this, providers identify entry points to the public health management system at all stages of life, from birth to death.
Target access points help keep the population healthy enough to avoid immediate hospitalization and help treat patients with a history of acute pathology to avoid costly re-hospitalizations.
Planning issues
The design of the clinic will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the market and methods of medical care, which encourages the following planning recommendations:
Flexibility. To maximize the use of the viewing room, plan a flexible universal platform that can be modified to meet the unique needs of different professionals. For example, a flexible viewing room will include mobile furniture and carts with medicines that can be brought as needed, which will allow you to modify the room at any time.
The conference space can also be easily transformed into a training room. Flexibility guarantees the possibility of changing the space in the short term to meet the urgent needs of the clinic.
Adaptability. Adaptability provides long-term change. Within a small clinic, this can mean that a large room can be easily converted into four examination rooms if necessary. In a larger clinic, adaptability may mean that the building can provide long-term changes such as transforming a medical office building into an outpatient facility.
Scalability. Scalability responds to growth outside the existing walls of the built clinic. For mall construction, this could mean that the plan may grow as the neighborhood retail store becomes vacant – mostly for the construction of a new building.
In a larger clinic, this scalability may mean the creation of another complete health care module in the adjacent space, gradually expanding the size of the building while maintaining operational flows for the rest of the facility.
Healthcare is not only about the doctors and nurses healing patients but also about its infrastructure. Similarly, as medicine advances, so does the care that goes into designing hospital floor plans. It’s because diligence in design is necessary. To help you get the most pre-construction planning, below are 6 insight and tips for multi-speciality hospital floor plans.
1. Understand the Demographics
Whether you’re renovating the hospital or building a new one from scratch, one thing that you must take the time to understand is the demographics, needs, wants and goals of a healthcare facility. Understand the existing programs and examine what can be improved.
2. Patient-Friendly Design
Most of the hospitals now focused on the outpatients’ treatment and making the patient’s trip an event. Often, the outpatients don’t feel comfortable in hospitals. Such kind of perception needs to be catered to through the design of your building and structure. Think patient-friendly design for the hospital not like a boring old hospital.
3. Gather Information
Manage short interviews with the executive team, physicians and other staff and then prepared a master plan. Pay attention to what they are saying and examine all the department to know.
4. Work Smartly
After making the strategy, smartly work on it by making the visitor flow easy and efficient. It’s crucial to keep outpatient and inpatient flow independent of each other. Make medical staff circulation smooth and discrete.
5. Choose Right Designing Location
With a good design hospital and department location, you can maximise doctor and staff flow and routine. This will assure that your building runs like a well-oiled engine.
6. Go Step By Step
Once you start working on the plan, don’t get all the work done at once because it could create chaos. Let your executive team and hospital’s board determine how you pay for it and when. After discussion, communicate with your builder. This makes for an insignificant interruption to existing hospital programs and a more practical plan of attack.
Conclusion
Apart from the above tips, a multi-speciality hospital floor plan should have a detailed all floor layout and site plan. For example, the ground floor must have parking entirely. The upper ground or first floor accommodates different wings like Paediatric, Dental, Laboratory, Skin, Gynae, Psyche, Paediatric Ward etc. with multi-bedded Ward with their required facilities.
The design and infrastructure of the hospitals play a crucial role in the patient’s safety. It doesn’t matter how much money one spends on the infrastructure of the hospital building planbecause you cannot rehabilitate the hospital frequently. Therefore, infrastructure should be done properly before building a hospital.Therefore, the infrastructure of the building should be designed to keep its look and function in mind for patients.
How to do Hospital Facility Planning Efficiently?
· To provide better facilities to the patients, a professional team should be assigned with the responsibility that each member should perform. Other facilities might be required to plan like architects, medical planners, engineers, interior designers, landscape designer.
· Many things may sound minor, but in actual plays, a major role. Things such as parking area for staff and patients, clinical area, common hall, patient area, emergency entry gate, main entry, etc.
· Another thing that one should consider while planning a hospital facility is that numerous people might have been suffering from different problems. So, some emergency arrangements should be done corresponding to every type of problem.
· When doing hospital planning, the industry standards must be followed before fixing bed space, operation theatres, consultation, investigation and restroom etc.
· The environment of the hospital must be positive and healthy for the staff, patients and people present in the hospital. Usually, people feel stressed for their friends and relative who have been suffering from some disease. Hence, while planning the design of the hospital, one should be kept in that mind that there should be some worship area, positive quotes on the wall.
· The canteen of the hospital should always have adequate space with sitting so that people who come with patients could spend some good time together.
· The waiting area of the patient should be designed in such a way that a patient could unwind properly if he or she has to wait for a long time for the treatment process.
Usually, patients prefer to get treatment from hospitals that have the standard infrastructure in terms of security and administration. So, if you are looking for an experienced and best hospital designing and planning service provider, then you must choose Astron Health Care consultancy that has a team of professional facility planner, architects, engineers. They are well known for doing hospital planning and designing under the national and international accreditation standards.
The process of creating optimal hygienic conditions in medical institutions is determined by the peculiarities of land planning and development, arrangement and internal planning of buildings, their sanitary and technical improvement, as well as the sanitary condition during operation.
In planning a hospital, getting accurate data is crucial. There are no right solutions for everything and only from a deep understanding of the context, demographics, population served, the necessary medical disciplines or the already existing facilities of the environment, will it be possible to predict and develop an adequate functional program.
Different realities need different hospitals. The design of a centre in a rural environment or in a large urban agglomeration involves different issues, and designing for different countries will involve knowing the different realities of the local context.
In each country, it is possible to identify those common diseases or the most necessary treatments, which will help us plan hospitals that focus on the most serious local health challenges.
The architecture and planning of a hospital are of crucial long-term importance for proper patient care and functionality. They form the basis for optimal work processes and, in turn, minimize the workload of the hospital staff.
Hygiene, flexible work options and cost optimization play an important role in the design of workplaces, but they are not the only factors that play a role: patient and staff satisfaction is also key.
Arrangement and organization of treatment and prevention facilities, in accordance with hygienic requirements, make it possible to:
Create the best environmental conditions for patients;
Contribute to the introduction of treatment and protection regime;
Prevent the occurrence of nosocomial infections;
Facilitate the medical work of medical staff;
Promote the fastest recovery of patients and provide optimal conditions for the activities of health professionals.
After all, without proper hygienic conditions, therapeutic actions are powerless. As science and technology, including medicine, medical technology, and sanitary technology, are constantly being improved, deepened, and scientifically developed, hospital buildings are constantly being rebuilt and completed.
Investment costs for a hospital are unpredictably high. In rational business planning and economic field program, operating and personnel costs should be taken into consideration first, and all this could be done with the help of hospital consultants in Delhi NCR.
In the first phase of business planning, the builder, architects, expert planners and the hospital administration should meet together in order to minimize incorrect investment decisions and unfavorable operating expenses.
It is important that the architects cooperate with the administration and specialist engineers (hospital planners, hygienists) in dissertation.
The basis of business planning consists of equipment planning for construction, form, installation and construction system, medical technical requirements and equipment.
Hospitals are institutions that provide treatment and care for patients with severe and chronic complaints. Hospitals differ in the type, scope, area of expertise and the size of the treatment equipment.
While hospitals were planned as medical surgical institutions in the past, it is emphasized that the institutions are made suitable for human beings with the new trend today, all thanks to healthcare management consulting in India.
As hospitals look towards the “post-COVID-19” doom, they are shifting their focus to increase operational facilities and immediately create additional cost and workflow opportunities. The old saying “necessity is the mother of invention” holds true now more than ever before.
Patient care decision, dictated by necessary safety measures, has obligated hospital leaders to completely recalibrate how they address healthcare visits, pushing mobile-based solutions such as Telehealth, Home Monitoring, Virtual Waiting Rooms, and Virtual Visits; the list goes on and on.
As telehealth proves to be a cost-effective and safe beam of hope for the patient that would otherwise not receive care, it is also a solution for hospitals to give and deliver care amidst overwhelming public concern due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Expanding access to care through telehealth seems to be a promising option for hospitals. Despite this benefit, however, there are still several concerns with the efficiency and implementation of a hospital virtual care program or Telehealth.
While there are many advantages to implementing telemedicine, there are some sound concerns as well as several misunderstandings. In this article, we will provide solutions to the top 10 concerns of hospitals considering telehealth maneuvering. The primary goal of this article is to provide resources and solutions to common telehealth challenges.
Patient comfort, adoption & retention concerns
A common myth among experts is the concern of an impersonal patient experience due to the virtual environment of a telehealth visit. It is often believed that because patients and providers are communicating through a video screen and that visits are smaller than your traditional in-person visit, a virtual visit will lack a feeling of human contact and cause issues with patient satisfaction. This is a myth; patients often have minor feelings of human connection during an in-person visit than during a telehealth visit.
According to studies, during an in-person visit, 64% of primary care physicians did not ask why a patient came in, and when they did, patients were interrupted within 11 seconds. But, virtual visits – especially those used in telemental health – often compel patients and providers to look each other in the eye. As well, the telemedicine platform can improve synergies for patients who aren’t comfortable seeing a doctor in person.
While there is surely a distance barrier and looking at a monitor can feel less human, there are a few practices that will help your patients feel as though they are speaking with a person and not a computer.
Providers can build rapport with their patients by communicating with them. A simple question, “How are you doing?” can go a long way in building a human connection through a computer. Asking patient-centered subjects about their goals for care at the beginning of the visit can open a healthy discussion between provider and patient. If the patient is fresh to the virtual visit experience, providers can educate them by discussing the aspects of the visit and virtual care.
Making direct eye contact, actively listening, and not interrupting when the patient is speaking can all enhance the patient experience during a virtual visit. In addition, building a welcoming virtual care environment with quality telehealth-appropriate cameras, natural lighting, and room aesthetics can also improve the patient experience.
If the patient is less familiar with initiating a telehealth visit, which is a common barrier for elderly individuals, providers should take special care to create an inviting environment and anticipate their needs, especially for individuals who lack proficiency with technology.
By following these practices, you will make a considerable positive influence on patient engagement and the success of your virtual care program.
Diagnosis & exam difficulties
While telehealth is suitable for a wide collection of care needs-from treating the common cold, flu, UTI, insect bites, sore throats, post-op check-ins, remote monitoring, and more. But, some situations require an in-person examination.
According to a study examining the effectiveness of consumer electronics within a telehealth exam, elements of the physical examination that are easily observed show great concordance, while posterior structures and elements that are difficult to observe using consumer communications technology limit the utility of the telehealth exam.
Providers should use their best knowledge and follow protocol to determine when and how to schedule an in-person exam. The clear advantage of a hospital- or clinic-implemented telehealth approach is the readiness to schedule an in-person visit when necessary.
To lessen the impact on patients, providers should also be prepared to schedule the exam during the telehealth visit. Hospital- and clinic-based telehealth programs should develop a protocol for in-person exams, including scheduling, coordination, payment, and a contactless check-in.
Providers will need to describe the aspects of the exam that will take place, follow-up considerations, and other preparations. For example, if a patient is coming in for a urinalysis to test for UTI, the provider might collect payment and any other information ahead of time to expedite the visit.
Considering COVID-19 and other Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) exposure risks, clinics should also encourage patients to bring a mask and wait in their vehicles if their room is not available upon arrival.
While translating a telemedicine visit to an in-person examination is not always perfect from a patient perspective, full communication about the scope of care and easing the check-in process will drastically minimize any negative impact.
Quality of care & linking concerns
The top patient concern regarding telehealth is the low quality of care. There is not enough evidence to suggest that the quality of care given is lower for telehealth other than what may be derived from limitations of care. Given that telehealth improves access to care through lower costs and by meeting patients where they are, virtual care advances health care consequences.
However, lack of data for care continuity has the potential to add risk as patient records may not reflect outcomes, treatment plans, and diagnoses from outside telehealth providers. This lack of platform unification between providers is common.
However, adding telehealth options within hospitals and clinics where patients receive primary care can eliminate this risk through interconnectivity within the Electronic Health Record (EHR). By using a platform that integrates with your EHR, you can record your practiced workflow and ensure your patients’ e-visits are properly documented and updated for future visits.
In cases where this circumstance is unavoidable, the best solution is to request details of your patient’s latest visit and attempt to access their medical records to eliminate misdiagnosis and treatment risks.
Clinician burnout
One of the top concerns for telehealth is physician burnout due to lack of face-to-face time with patients and increased time updating the patient’s medical records in the EHR. With packed days, high demand, and increasing burdens and complications caused by COVID-19, clinician burnout is certainly a major concern for healthcare systems and physicians. However, the rate of burnout is primarily a result of workflow inefficiencies.
Telemedicine Reduces Provider Burnout, 42% of providers experience clinician burnout leading to poor performance, which can lead to medical errors. Telehealth can create greater versatility and day-to-day variety through telehealth days. Providers can see patients from their office or their home. This allows them to telecommute and save the total travel time. It proves to be a nice break from daily hustles.
Medicare & Medicaid reimbursement concerns
This is cited as a top challenge for telemedicine programs. The applicability of telehealth has been suppressed for years due to state and central reimbursement restrictions.
Though there has been much improvement in recent years, before the COVID-19 pandemic, federally run Medicare coverage had many limitations on how coverage could be applied. Earlier, for instance, Medicare billing requirements mandated the telehealth visit must take place within a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) and at an authorized originating site, such as a physician’s office, hospital, or skilled nursing facility.
This has completely destroyed any advantage of telehealth as a home option, virtual care visit, and reimbursement was only applicable to specific Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) temporarily expanded Medicare reimbursement and applicable services to expand telemedicine options. This expansion allowed Medicare to pay for visits regardless of location, including within a patient’s home and allows for a wider range of providers to offer virtual visits.
Medicaid has been less limiting. While most states do reimburse for live telehealth, relatively few states cover store-and-forward or remote patient monitoring telehealth. It is a good idea to check your specific state laws and policies.
Telehealth limitations & regulations
Today, health care providers may, in good faith, provide telehealth services to patients using remote communication technologies, such as commonly used apps – including FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype – for telehealth services. Furthermore, the established patient with a physician requirement is no longer required, which means a physician can see a new patient and still receive Medicare reimbursement during this public health emergency.
Privacy & security concerns
As telehealth is a virtual bidirectional interaction between providers and patients sharing health information, there is an understandable concern regarding potential privacy breaches, particularly for patients. Providers should ensure patient-provider trust by maintaining strict standards in safeguarding patient privacy and security. When communicating electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI), it is critical to use a system to monitor these conversations and prevent breaches.
Providers should seek a compliant communication platform that will have encrypted data transmission and allows only authorized users to access ePHI. It is essential to consider all potential threats to the integrity of ePHI, particularly virtual environment changes or end-user risks.
For example, if a provider or third-party contractor is working from home, connected to a hospital network, it is important to ensure that they are fully protected against potential cyber-attacks.
According to studies, VPNs are one of the most common, secure, and strong methods for connecting remotely to an enterprise network. However, organizations have been failing to patch core vulnerabilities found in some of the most recommended VPNs, despite repeated warnings and available patches.
For patient end protection, consider executing two-factor authentication to add more protection against cyber-attacks and have a detailed plan to address security and privacy concerns and take measures to protect patient security and ease potential apprehension.
Program awareness Affairs, Sustainability & Growth
Growing efforts and sustainability are both top concerns for any new hospital venture; however, there are some strategic practices to consider before beginning a successful telehealth initiative.
The best methods to establish a virtual care program in an existing hospital includes placement within a specific area of the building, such as near the ER or out-patient check-in, to positively impact the promotion of the virtual care program through physical exposure, shared responsibilities among the providers, care managers, nurses, front desk staff, and schedulers in actively promoting telehealth as an option to current patients.
Technical Training & Restructuring Obligations
Restructuring and learning new methods and processes in preparation to implement telemedicine within a hospital is a labor-intensive endeavor.
There is a need for the characteristics and roles of a clinical telehealth champion who pushes the implementation and virtual care program forward.
The four distinct core components and roles of each telemedicine team: Core, Leadership, Advisory, and Implementation are also needed. Within Telehealth Staff & Care Team Roles & Responsibilities, there must be five cross-compatible roles among existing clinical staff to structure your new virtual care team. You must know the methods to prepare your team and evaluate your program to ensure a smooth patient experience.
Hospital Integration & Implementation Concerns
Implementing and integrating a virtual care option within a hospital may seem a daunting process. However, proper structure, planning, and alignment with the organization’s purpose will facilitate implementation within a tighter timeline.
Providers can start by creating a business plan that outlines the scope of the project, helps determine its efficacy, and steers the next steps. It is important to impersonate your business plan to key stakeholders and discuss the elements and challenges ahead to gain buy-in.
The providers must ensure to discuss their service plan assessment, financial plans, marketing, and optimal placement strategy, organizational structure, security, patient satisfaction concerns, and training framework openly to address any potential gaps and gain momentum.
While there are still some limitations on telehealth, many healthcare providers are innovating to solve these issues and improve their patients’ access to quality care. Now that you know some solutions to the concerns of telehealth, you’re ready to start thinking about how your practice will approach this booming healthcare trend.
Around the world, national healthcare emergency plans have struggled to cope with the force of Covid-19, with healthcare facilities and critical care systems buckling under extraordinary pressure. Faced with a massive inrush of long-term intensive care patients, overstretched hospitals have often had to rely on medical evacuations organized by regional health agencies and even the army. In a growing number of countries, this is leading to a complete rethink concerning the way hospitals are designed.
Flexibility is now the most valuable ingredient of healthcare buildings. Even before COVID, there was a growing realization that buildings of every kind needed to be more flexible, as technological change far outpaces the development cycle. The pandemic has added powerfully to the case for flexibility – intruding operations in every part of the built environment and promising to disrupt markets for many years to come.
In this article, we have specified the top ten areas where we see change coming.
1. Improving Infection Prevention
The hospital’s infection control/prevention unit is going to become a much louder voice in many design meetings going forward. There will be increased demand to make design features more easily cleaned and use surfaces that withstand harsh chemicals. More health systems will use UV light or disinfecting mists in high- and medium-risk areas. Low-risk areas like exam rooms will need more thorough cleaning rules and room turnover processes. All this needs to be done without losing the warmth and hospitality of today’s healthcare designs.
2. Increasing isolation room capacity
The biggest transformation most facilities have undertaken during the pandemic is expanding the number of isolation rooms. Going forward, hospitals will need collections of rooms and entire units and wings that can be negatively pressurized and cut off from the rest of the hospital in a pandemic. These units will need easy ways to get patients in from the ED, as well as trash out, without going through the entire hospital premises. While antechambers are not required in the Facility Guidelines Institute’s guidance, design teams will still need to address how staff can remove PPE without corrupting the hallway outside isolated patient care areas.
3. Limiting shared staff spaces.
Many of the assumptions that we have used earlier in designing staff spaces may need to be reconsidered, including the size and division of workstations within a staff workspace, the number of people in an office, and the number of people sharing each workstation. Large, shared break rooms and locker rooms may be excluded in favor of smaller, more discrete spaces. Additionally, administrative departments may be relocated off-site, or work-from-home arrangements may be devised to lessen the staff on campus. The numbers of students and merchants onsite at a given time may be limited, too.
4. Patients must be triaged by paramedics before they enter the ED.
The predominance of tents outside of EDs during this crisis, and their susceptibility to weather events, points to a need to help our clients re-envision the triage and intake process. We need alternatives to triage people before they walk in the front door, including tele-triage, apps, and multiple entries and waiting solutions, based upon medical needs. Overflow facilities that are external to the hospital need to be resolute, durable, and quickly erected, with utility connections planned for and already in place.
5. Re-imagining waiting rooms and public spaces.
Nobody liked the waiting room earlier, but now it seems unimaginable that people will be willing to sit next to possibly infectious strangers while they wait for an appointment or a loved one’s procedure. Trends like self-check-in and self-rooming will accelerate to reduce interactions with other people. Patients and families will be prompted to wait outside or in their car. All public spaces including waiting rooms, lobbies, and dining facilities will have to be carefully planned, structured, and designed to create a greater physical separation between people, with appropriate queuing.
6. Planning for inpatient surge capacity.
The design of the healthcare organization must be such that it can easily accommodate double or triple the number of patients. The hospital planning team must rethink how they can convert surgical prep and PACU into overflow ICUs. They need to explore through every building system (HVAC, E-power, med gas, etc.) to make sure that the design should be such that the services to these units can meet the vastly increased patient and equipment load.
7. Finding surge capacity in outpatient centers.
The continued growth in mobile or ambulatory care will resume as soon as our current crisis passes. Because many of these facilities are often owned by healthcare systems and already have emergency power or limited medical gasses, they have the potential to provide faster flood capacity, with fewer disruptions, than the field hospitals being erected in hotels and convention centers. As we develop outpatient clinics, freestanding EDs, and ambulatory surgery centers, we need to consider the infrastructure that is necessary for these facilities to support sicker patients during the next pandemic.
8. Inventories for greater supply chain control.
Hospitals and health systems are looking for greater control of their supply chain and will likely stockpile key supplies, equipment, and medication to avoid future supply shortages. They may develop acquisition agreements with third-party supply and equipment vendors for stockpiles they cannot afford to maintain on their own and will expect greater support from their group purchasing organizations. Some stockpiles may be at individual hospitals, while larger systems may maintain supplies regionally or nationally. We will need to design facilities to house these inventories as well as systems to maintain, refresh, and replenish them.
9. Telemedicine’s impact on facility sizes.
Many service lines will likely need smaller outpatient centers in the future as telemedicine reduces the need for exam rooms, waiting rooms, and support spaces. Telemedicine has flourished throughout this crisis, allowing clinicians to perform routine check-ups and triage with patients without putting either doctor or patient at risk. While the future reimbursement for telemedicine is unclear, the impact on these designs will be enormous. The technology is relatively cheap, physicians can see more patients in the same amount of time, and there are virtually no space requirements.
10. Isolation operating rooms and cath labs.
Setting up key spaces that allow for social distancing in design will be predominant. Healthcare entrances will need to consider queuing in line with social distancing and biometric temperature screening requirements.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on how to operate on an infectious patient require that the operating room remain positively pressurized, that it stays sealed throughout the surgery, and that no activity takes place within the room for an extended time after intubation and extubation. While important, these processes greatly extend the length of surgical cases and limit staff mobility in and out of the room before, during, and after cases. To function more effectively and efficiently, many more hospitals will want ORs and cath labs with the proper airflow and design to protect the patient from surgical infection while protecting the staff in the room and the surrounding facility from the patient. This will need the addition of pressurized anterooms from the OR to both the hallway and the surgical core or control room, careful balancing of HVAC systems, and modeling of airflow within the lab or the operating room itself to ensure that potentially contaminated air is drawn away from the staff to minimize the risk of infection.
Conclusion:
Healthcare planners, architects, and designers must take a leading role in creating safer healthcare spaces in a post-COVID-19 world. Executing these types of innovative strategies along with the recommendations of distancing and avoiding contact will let patients receive care in safer spaces.
Unlike most healthcare design trends that develop over several years, these changes have already become essential in just a few short weeks, as hospitals and health systems are forced to figure out how to take emergency changes with limited supplies and resources. In the coming years, healthcare organizations will need to adjust their operations for future pandemics, codes will need to be rewritten to safely meet these new situations, and government grants will be necessary to promote hospitals to make these changes permanent.
The healthcare design industry has a responsibility now to help reimagine the future of healthcare design to best lodge these new operational realities.
One of the factorsthat increases patient loyalty is the prestige that the power of the brand gives you. Some patients choose and stay hospital simply believing in the power and prestige of the brand. One of the most important duties of such hospitals is not to damage this strong perception.
The prestigious hospital does not necessarily have to have brand power. But a hospital with brand power must be prestigious and fulfil the strength of the brand.
Your brand power builds over time, with your advertising work, your high service quality and your dignity in your business. Because branding means transforming into an institutionalized state of quality and nobility. Nobility, on the other hand, depends on having a well-worked corporate culture.
Institutional culture is realized by the understanding and acceptance of the logic of “This is how things work here” by all business partners that make up the institution.
The impact of corporate culture on the perception of prestige and therefore on the brand power you are trying to create is very high.
In hospitals with a strong corporate culture, all doctors and business partners adhere to established behavioural criteria that indicate how they should behave and give a more integrated image. Generally, strong and effective management is done by contacting healthcare consulting firms in India, and this is the reason why we would like to suggest the same thing for you, to contact an expert.
On the other hand, in hospitals with a weak corporate culture, everybody plays differently because no one is sure about what to do and how to do it.
In such hospitals, some doctors and nurses take the initiative and some criticize them constantly. As a result, a chaotic situation emerges, and the patient’s trust in the hospital is damaged.
Knowing your customers closely, following them and doing a deepened data study, establishing a strong call team with a good CRM support will benefit you in terms of customer relations in every sector.
Because in customer relations management, satisfied customers are reflected in the whole process and provide loyal customers. This naturally brings profitability.
Patient satisfaction is a component of assessing quality of care. The measurement of patient satisfaction is part of a global context of the rise in the role of the user in the organization of the health system and the growing role of quality approaches.
The service provided to the customer and therefore its appreciation hold a central place. Today, patients are active partners in the care offered to them and their satisfaction is considered as an indicator of the quality of care.
The collection of their point of view is necessary to assess the quality of a healthcare system as well as the technical considerations that healthcare professionals may deliver.
The quality of this new relationship between the patient and his doctor and the satisfaction expressed by the patient must be evaluated in order to bring about continuous improvement, and this can be done with the help of hospital management consultancy services.
Keep in mind that some patients are more familiar with the digital world than we think. Another recommendation is to reduce waiting times. It is also advisable to create a harmonious work environment. This influences the quality of care received and patient satisfaction with our services.
Nowadays, as patients want to learn about their diseases and participate in the decisions made about them, providing healthcare services determined only by the healthcare team is not sufficient for the provision of quality healthcare services.
For this reason, patient satisfaction is considered as a service process focused on patient expectations and needs in quality health care. Because the patient whose expectations for healthcare services are not met and his family are candidates to become the patients of another hospital.
The orientation of clinics and hospitals is focused, in most cases, on health without considering the comprehensive experience that the patient lives in interaction with the institution.
Each point of contact establishes a perception that influences the Experience and that will undoubtedly be a reason for recommendation or disapproval.
Hospital management consulting company design service models and redesign internal processes to improve care and increase patient loyalty and recommendation.
There can be no improvement without first correcting the attention and ways of working. Providers of hospital consultancy services in India know how to approach change. They advise clinics and hospitals to improve from within and create positive experiences.
How to guarantee complete patient satisfaction? How does the patient feel your attention and care? That you are quick to answer their questions by shortening the time to get results? Ensure that your team delivers qualified, patient-centred care? How to shorten the length of hospital stay? Ensure patient safety in a hospital setting? Do you run a medical institution and are looking for answers to these questions every day?
Top hospital consultants in India offer a wide range of solutions to improve patient satisfaction.
As a healthcare manager, you strive to ensure complete patient satisfaction. For obvious reasons, each patient and his family is interested in their own experience of hospital stay: understanding health problems and their treatment; speedy recovery and return home; proper care and safety during hospital stay.
This means that you must provide fast and accurate diagnostics to solve the patient’s problem; appropriate level of training of personnel; provision of qualified medical care, patient flow management and bed allocation; creating safe conditions for hospital stay and rational use of antibiotics.
Medical staff must be qualified, motivated and provide quality patient-centred care. It is important that patients feel proper care of themselves. Clear workplace expectations and working principles help staff develop the right skills.
Hospital administrators must also support their staff to continue their education and keep abreast of new technologies and knowledge in the field of medicine.
Reducing the length of stay in medical institutions
For the patient, this is an early return home to his loved ones. For you, this is also the optimal operation of your institution and the provision of the best possible care for the majority of patients.
Measures of healthcare consulting firms in India on continuous improvement will help your hospital to improve their capacity to minimize waiting time, maximize productivity and improve patient care.
