Written by CMBA | Jan 14, 2021 6:00:00 AM
The patient experience is extremely important for any healthcare facility, and rightfully so. But the patient experience can all-too-easily overshadow more routine occupants: clinicians. We believe that the healthcare workforce deserves a more supportive built environment, and here's how we think it should be done...
Healthcare Isn't What it Used to be...
Clearly, healthcare delivery is a lot more complicated than in the past. Tech is changing, innovation is exponential, and chronic illness seems more prevalent than ever. It's no wonder
nurse burnout was on the rise before COVID-19. Unfortunately, the pandemic has only exacerbated the stress that clinicians have been living with for many years. The current paradigm results in patient and family specific spaces receiving priority in square footage, location and sometimes even capital. While that approach might seem like the right idea at first, aiming to give patients an excalibur experience, it actually does the opposite. Clinicians are
just as important as the patients they serve. After all, without healthy and productive clinicians, healthcare would collapse altogether.
Striking a Healthy Balance
In order to adequately provide for clinicians, it is necessary that we make changes in support of them, WITHOUT sacrificing major the leaps forward in patient-centered design. Prioritizing clinicians is not meant to overtake the patient experience; it should seek to highlight the benefits of the built environment for
everyone, in a way that maximizes the clinicians' health and wellbeing, as well as their productivity and resilience. Countless academic studies have clearly shown that the built environment has a large impact on wellbeing, which in turn affects stress and productivity. This body of research has given us principles that can be applied individually, like improving air quality, increasing access to natural light, mitigating acoustic levels and optimizing other human factors to create a more harmonious and less charged environment. By designing your healthcare facility in a way that emphasizes clinician wellbeing, we truly believe it is possible to greatly improve the overall experience and create a lasting impact on everyone who enters your facility.