Hospital infrastructures are surely the most demanding and complex buildings to design, and their investments too high to neglect in the design process. Rapid medical and technological developments in the sector have significantly changed hospital design, and healthcare models are currently out of date.
Most existing infrastructures require some form of adaptation, and in some countries, the lack of sanitary buildings remains a critical problem. Designing a hospital that responds to new demands requires an iterative design process, with the ability to collect and analyse all available information in a single coherent solution.
The high level of complexity, the necessary relationship between different spaces and the technical requirements, force any hospital architect to be constantly updated on the latest trends and developments and to have a wide range of knowledge of various areas that are key to this type of building. This requires a multidisciplinary team consisting of hospital planners in India, facility engineers, structuralists, architects, interior designers, landscapers, medical planners, and project managers.
Beyond the needs of the patient
Currently, we cannot focus only on the needs of the patient, we have to go further. It is very common that patients and their families are not listened to and do not receive adequate attention by health personnel, often due to lack of time or lack of emotional tools.
Comprehensive support for families
It is of utmost importance to offer these parents and their families a humanization of care from the beginning, giving them continuous emotional support without interruptions and guiding them from the moment they receive the first news to discharge, and that as the development of the new-born’s income progresses, the needs of the parents change and they are also subjected to “a roller coaster” of events and, what was good news yesterday, today is a sudden change in the evolution of the New-born due to an infection or new problem that has arisen unexpectedly.
For parents, this continual fluctuation means an even greater emotional strain, the greater the longer the admission, something very frequent in the case of extremely premature new-borns.
An indispensable support
Therefore, the psychologist is a link between parents and health personnel, improving communication between them. In addition, when parents leave the hospital, they are delighted with the humanitarian treatment received, since having this emotional support, has reduced the levels of stress and anxiety of the parents.
Also, it is essential to highlight that the person who gives emotional support to the parents also collaborates and works with the health personnel on a daily basis, such as, for example, offering strategies on how to act at certain times with families or with their co-workers.
This hospital space planning design focuses on caring for parents and caregivers, that is, for health personnel who are day-to-day at the foot of their crib living extreme emotional situations, on many occasions.
For this reason, as part of the project, it also focuses on giving healthcare personnel psychological tools to deal with the families of these children on a day-to-day basis.