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We're not going to pretend to do a full recap of this year's Healthcare Design Conference & Expo. With 100+ sessions, it's simply not possible. But we would love to share with you three themes that are becoming design imperatives for hospitals.
One of the most packed sessions we attended was Designing for Invisible Disabilities – of which neurodivergence is one (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, ADHD). With 15-20% of the global population displaying some form of neurodivergence, we're talking about millions of patients and caregivers who could be better served through design. This topic also surfaced in broader panel discussions about wellness-driven design and pediatric healthcare, as well as product demonstrations.
Hospital environments are not exactly easy on the senses. A multitude of hard surfaces bounce sound around, the smell of disinfectants get trapped in elevators and bathrooms, and fluorescent lighting combined with bright white walls make it hard to feel any sense of calm.
While there is no single solution, opportunity lies in asking things like:
One of the core tensions of capital projects in healthcare is that the buildings need to last for decades, yet we can only predict so much about what care will look like in the future. And, for multi-year capital projects, the technology available even from planning to opening can meaningfully evolve.
Robots make for a good case study. They've been available to hospitals for years. But, planning for the expense as well as figuring out how the robots will travel through a facility takes time. Anyone planning a building needs to understand the hospital's intentions around accommodating robots in order to devise safe pathways for robots to complete tasks. That way, whether robots are acquired in year one or year ten, there's flexibility within the building to operationalize them.
One of the most compelling future visions we saw was for an arrival experience currently under development for a patient pavilion that isn't slated to open until 2030. The vision is for tokens to be used to tell staff when patients arrive, eliminating the need for a traditional check-in process, which can feel transactional. Tokens will enable hospital employees to greet patients by name once they come up to the lobby without the physical barrier of a desk between them.
It's a great example of planning an ideal, future-forward experience in partnership with technology experts, then waiting to choose a specific technology until the project is close to opening in order to take advantage of advances that take place between now and then. It's bold. But it's also really cool.
Clinician burnout continues to be a topic of conversation -- and a call for action. Researchers from HKS, MillerKnoll, and CADRE presented findings about what contributes to nurse burnout based on a robust analysis of 15k+ comments nurses made on social media.
Their research challenges narratives about burnout and ways to make nursing more sustainable. Mental and physical fatigue were two of five contributors to burnout, but they weren't as prevalent as – get this – hierarchy (nurses having to defend their capabilities and relevance) and affinity (reduced emotional connections to others).
"No nurse said, 'I need a place to cry. I want a respite room.'" – Deborah Wingler, Global Practice Director, Applied Research, HKS
That line certainly got people talking. Subsequent sessions acknowledged the finding, but argued that many nurses don't know that respite rooms exist or how to ask hospital leaders for that type of support. Another session mentioned that respite spaces will only succeed if they are aligned with organizational culture. If it doesn't feel safe to take mental or emotional breaks in the first place, staff won't take advantage of respite rooms even if they're available.
So where does this leave us? Perhaps in a middle ground where we can all agree that clinician burnout (as well as recruitment and retention) is impacted by multiple factors, and therefore a multi-pronged approach is the best path forward. For the physical environment, this can mean everything from planning layouts that reduce the distance nurses walk during shifts to questioning whether nurses and physicians really need separate spaces to eat and work, or whether ending that practice could reduce the feelings of inequality and hierarchy within the hospital.
As for respite rooms, we're still advocates, as was a presenter from CannonDesign, who said:
"Caregivers need places to be human... and not just stairwells, storage rooms and closets. We can embrace that these moments happen and plan for them."
The Healthcare Design Conference & Expo took place from October 5-8, 2024 in Indianapolis. We are grateful to all the presenters for sharing their insights and projects in service of moving the field forward.
