Lorissa MacAllister, PhD, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, EDAC, has won the prestigious New Investigator Research Award from the Center for Health Design’s Research Coalition. Her research project, “Improving Patient Satisfaction and Experience through Supportive Design,” builds on her dissertation, where she discovered that design factors such as room layout predict patient perceptions of physicians and
Tuesday, August 18th was a proud day for North Ottawa Community Hospital as they broke ground on the expansion and renovation of their new Emergency Department. This project aims to not only design a new space, but to create an entirely new approach to care that is largely focused on community health and awareness. Tuesday
Designing a new building can take months. Designing a new care model takes years. By leveraging a new building program as a catalyst for cultural transformation, North Ottawa Community Hospital has created a rallying point for cultural change within the organization. The building is a tool for it occupants. It can hinder, and create obstacles,
So the New Year has rolled in and you have made a commitment to eat healthy and exercise in order to be a healthier you. Have you thought about what environment you might need to support this resolution? A recent study showed that the environment, in particular lighting levels and music, in which you consume your
In Redesigned Rooms, Hospital Patients May Feel Better Already The possibility that the Ebola virus might find its way into the United States raises urgent questions about how well the interior design of our hospitals minimizes risks and promotes healing. Michael Kimmelman’s article (“In Redesigned Room, Hospital Patients May Feel Better Already,”August 21, 2014)highlighted the
Healthcare systems and facilities are continually challenged with changing practices and variations in volumes. The new economy has supported a perfect storm of changes: consolidation of services and facilities, various health systems mergers, new acquisitions, new measurements of performance and reimbursement with CMS meaningful use and value based purchasing, the continuing emergence of evidenced based
We are in a new era of design and use of our buildings. Today our greatest assets are the people in the organizations with the flattening of the business environment the uniqueness of business and especially in the knowledge economy. Business need to continue to improve the productivity of their workforce a more recent measure
Through years of experience and multiple planning projects I recognized early that in order to create a design that will work for the client you need to first get to know them well. As a designer and planner in Healthcare there have been years of work done to build evaluative models of design to predict