What if interactive architecture could do more than just react to its occupants?

What if architecture was based on rules that could promote designated functions? In this light, architecture would be motivational and goal-oriented. Hospitals; for instance, would actually help patients to heal instead of being cold and sterile, like so many hospitals we find today.

Adaptable architecture could help occupants have better experiences within buildings. For instance, within hospitals a rulebased architecture could help patients to do the following: understand their treatment reduce stress decrease pain engage in healing behavior Hospital rooms could tailor their interactions toward certain illnesses, recovery and patient types. In addition, adaptive architecture could help the medical staff do a better job, making less medical errors. Of course, patient control and choice is important and adaptive architecture should make provisions for both as it promotes functions within.

5ways Hospital Design Influences Patient Health

It is no secret that hospital patients are influenced by their surroundings. Hospital design directly impacts patient health in more ways than one might think. Today hospital designers are trying to evolve hospitals beyond their infamously sterile dcor. Care is being taken to use color, nature and wayfinding to ease a patients hospital stay. The following are five ways hospital design influences patient health where care should be taken to improve patient recovery. 1) SENSE OF PLACE: In the paper, Is there a Psychologist in the Building by Christian Jarrett, hospital layout is listed as quite an important factor for patients. Going beyond simple signage, hospital patients should be able to have a sense of their location without ever feeling lost. It has been found that having a sense of place helps keep patient stress levels down.(1) 2) PRIVATE ROOMS: Also important to hospital design is the frequency of private rooms in a hospital. Providing private rooms reduces medication error and falling instances.(1) Im sure you can imagine that private rooms also make for better visiting with patients and their loved ones. 3) NATURE + ARTWORK: Hospitals that include nature and artwork are providing for more positive patient experiences. Both nature and artwork contribute to patients having a greater sense of well-being where spaces lend themselves toward contemplation and feeding the senses.(1) 4) NOISE: A major problem within hospitals today is noise. Often patients cannot sleep through the night as medical carts screech through the halls and doors open and close. Hospital designers should pay greater attention to acoustics within hospitals as noisy environments generate more stress for patients. Also, sleep is critical for patient recovery. 5) COLOR: Use of color in hospital design has a multitude of uses. Color can help patients have a sense of orientation where color is used to give different hospital areas a sense of place. Also, color has been known to be associated with mood. Using the right colors in waiting areas, examination rooms, hallways or patient private rooms can have a definite affect on patient motivation and stress levels. All in all, progress is being made to design better hospitals. Much study and research is now underway to more completely understand what patients truly need. So often, it is the patient that never gets their needs heard during the design process. For this reason it is nice to know that healthcare design is now getting more attention and making improved headway.

(1) Jarrett, Christian. Is there a psychologist in the building?. The Phychologist. Vol 19 No 10. October 2006.

Whats next for Hospital Design? A Ubiquitous Smart Space

INFORMATION EVERYWHERE The hospital of the future is just around the corner. Already, research is being done to create an interactive hospital (1) also known as a ubiquitous smart space. The first step for better hospital design is a shift in mind-set where computers need to be thought of differently departing from the traditional office-type mentality. You see, hospitals deal with all formats of information that need to be accessible anytime and anywhere within the hospital. (1) Instead of providing one computer per person, an interactive hospital would provide an array of computer embedded just about everywhere so information can travel seamlessly, wherever and whenever it is needed.

A PRO-HEALING ENVIRONMENT As ubiquitous computing technologies come together to make medical smart spaces, it becomes possible for all kinds of medical devices to help with data and collaboration management. The first step is for hospital technologies and environments to become interactive helping the medical team to do a better job, more quickly. Here is a glimpse of how an interactive hospital might work:
We are working on prototypes for creating interactive walls, ceilings, and floors, as well as embedding computers in hospital beds, pill containers, surgical tools, etc. We envision a hospital where clinicians can approach interactive surfaces anywhere and carry on their work. Some of these surfaces are small and handheld like PDAs (but are not personal), others are large like the one used in a radiology conference room, where the whole wall is one big interactive surface. (1)

The beauty of an interactive hospital is that, if designed well, it can give the patient a much better healing experience. By creatively integrating ubiquitous and interactive devices, architects can fine tune healing environments through the patients senses, improving things like their physiology and mood important factors when it comes to healing.

SAFER AND FASTER PATIENT RECOVERY Its all about the patient and their recovery. By maximizing the capabilities of the different medical devices found in the hospital, interaction designers can help with many of the problems and challenges hospitals face today like medication errors. Here is a telling depiction of what an interactive hospital bed can accomplish:
For example, when the nurse arrives with the patients medicine, the bed is able to log in the nurse, check if the nurse is carrying the right medicine for the right patient, and it can display the relevant information on the screen, typically the medicine schema from the EPR system. Furthermore, various medical sensors measuring things like blood pressure, temperature, etc. can be attached to the bed and start using the onboard computer as a gateway to the basic infrastructure. Every bed is in itself a server containing various information about its patient and can be queried from e.g. an EPR. (1)

In essence, ubiquitous and interactive devices can greatly help the medical team to do their job. By fostering real-time collaboration between team members and optimizing the environment to promote safer and faster healing hospitals will be taking a much needed step forward.

(1) Bardram, Jakob E., Hospitals of the Future Ubiquitous Computing support for Medical Work in Hospitals. Centre for Pervasive Healthcare

LIGHTING INTERIOR
Hospital Patient Room: Within a hospital postoperative recovery room, there comes a point where it is important for the patient to engage in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) various grooming activities. But for a recovering patient in the hospital who has been sick it can be a huge effort to go into the bathroom to engage in such activities. Now what if when looking in the mirror to groom, the lighting was poor? How do you think that would affect the patients mood, optimism toward healing, and general sense of feeling better as they start off and end their day? Thus, there are key places where lighting interiors can make a very significant difference in healing.

SOLVING CONTRADICTION
Timing is everything (well, almost.) A great hospital design could, in fact, help to meet just the right patient needs at just the right time in their healing process. This yields faster recovery and; thus, less hospital cost since patients stay for less time. The secret is not to meet every patient need, whether they need it or not, but to meet individual patient needs at just the right time and in just the right way. The key is to fine tune your design so you can orchestrate not just how it works, but when it works. Instead of trying to solve two separate problems, find where they might interrelate often, by getting to the root of each problem, you will uncover that the two are not as far apart as you once thought. Often, what may seem to be a contradiction is really not.

Using Design to Make the Waiting Room a Good Thing

What Should People Do When They Wait? How do you design for the function of waiting? Do your building occupants ever really wait? Typically, they move from one activity to another, but it is equally important to also design for those in-between moments. What happens during those between moments can really impact an occupants experience; thus, as a designer, you can make what goes on inside a waiting room a great experience. Take hospitals, for instance. Once a patient has gone through the initial phase of checking in, then begins the often long and frequently boring wait. Unfortunately, many hospital designs dont place an emphasis on providing for an optimal waiting area and that is really a missed opportunity. Just think of the things that could be accomplished and provided for patients, if only architects would give some serious thought to what patients actually need during this time. For example, within a hospital waiting room, patients could get views of nature or be surrounded by calming colors and pleasing sounds thus, soothing patient anxiety and stress. Another tactic that would help patients endure those long waiting periods involves giving thought to the arrangement and ergonomics of where they sit. Comfort while waiting is key, particularly for hospital patients who might be in a great deal of pain. I have noticed that many waiting rooms incorporate televisions which play TV channels that patients can watch or listen to. In essence, this is a great idea but what about those that dont want to watch television, particularly when a waiting room only broadcasts news or other intense shows. It is important to realize that there is a difference between trying to distract a patient from boredom versus bombarding them with additional stressors.

Waiting Rooms Can Also Serve Other Functions

So, what can waiting rooms do? They can serve as buffer zones, transitional areas or even learning places as they receive occupants coming from one place and then prepare them to go into the next. For example, hospital waiting rooms can serve all three of these functions at once. Here are some examples: provide patients with a place of comfort to sooth anxiety and stress give patients a feeling of safety (knowing they will be receiving quality medical attention soon) teach patients to come up with important questions while they wait (to ask their doctor once inside the ER) Thus, waiting room areas can be an important link that makes your architectural design work more smoothly for your occupants. In reality, your occupants may spend a lot of time in these zones. If not designed properly, these areas could be your buildings weakest link which could ultimately weigh down the success of your overall design. Conversely, the design of your waiting room could be so successful that it becomes one of the strongest links in your design. Dont underestimate the challenge involved in designing a good one.