CHSD faculty fellows comment on U.S. health
care building boom, evidence-based design

In an article documenting a healthcare building boom under way in the United States, two Texas A&M architecture professors state why savvy hospital administrators are turning to evidence-based design solutions for new facilities.

Lisa Zamosky, writing in Leadership, a special report produced by a subsidiary of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, said a Minnesota hospital’s effective and pleasant design led to a rush of applicants in a state that is suffering from a shortage of nurses.

“You can’t say it doesn’t have something to do with the physical environment—the artwork, the wood, the views of nature — it all fits with what we know about how to effectively design a physical environment and is enhanced by a very positive philosophy on the part of management,” Kirk Hamilton, FAIA, FACHA, associate professor of architecture at Texas A&M, told Zamosky.

Roger Ulrich, professor of architecture and holder of the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design, said its important that design support hospital staff.

“How could it be rational in even a short-term sense to not pay attention to organization and physical design measures that help to reduce fatigue, reduce stress, enable staff to perform better and spend more time actually caring for patients and less time running around wastefully fetching things or lifting and hurting themselves?” Ulrich told Zamosky.

For Zamosky’s story, visit http://www.hfma.org/leadership/Attract-Cosumers.html.

- May 4th 2009 -