The hospital patient room of the future is on display and in use in Princeton, New Jersey, providing lessons that stand to benefit hospitals and patients nationwide. Princeton HealthCare System (PHCS) has built a fully functioning replica of the new hospital’s proposed patient room in its existing hospital. Over the coming months, PHCS will study how a room’s design impacts events such as medication errors, hospital-acquired infections, patient slip-and-falls, as well as the satisfaction of patients, their families, hospital staff and physicians.
The newly completed model patient room at University Medical Center at Princeton will be put to the test with actual patients to determine how the overall configuration of a hospital room — as well as countless details relating to the types and placement of materials, equipment and furnishings — can improve patient safety and comfort, health outcomes and the efficient delivery of healthcare.
Constructed on a busy patient floor, side-by-side with more traditional hospital rooms, the mock patient room at PHCS is allowing for real-time research in real-life conditions, while its performance is compared with the performance of existing rooms. For example, patient falls and fall-related injuries are a serious problem in all hospitals, and research shows that they often take place as people attempt to move themselves to and from their bathroom. In response, the mock patient room has been designed with the bed near the bathroom and along the same wall, and with a touch-sensitive handrail connecting them that lights up when patients take hold of it. The use of health information technology is also being closely studied in the mock patient room to encourage greater use of bedside computers and tablet devices that allow doctors and nurses to conduct their “charting activities” in the presence of the patient, rather than at a computer terminal in a corridor or nurses’ station.
The answers will not only influence how rooms are built at the new hospital, but potentially prompt a rethinking of hospital room design nationally. Funded by a $2.8 million research grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the initiative is part of The Pebble Project, a program of the national Center for Healthcare Design that promotes research on how the physical spaces of a hospital can contribute to patients’ healing and improved healthcare efficiency.
The lessons could spread quickly as U.S. hospitals continue to build an astonishing amount of new infrastructure as they expand and renovate aging facilities. Construction spending for healthcare projects has remained at historically high levels despite the economic downturn, approaching $50 billion in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Analysts expect that amount to top $60 billion by 2013.
Source: Princeton Healthcare System, August 17, 2010
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