Benchmarking Relevance for Hospital Design and Planning: An International Web-Based Survey.

OBJECTIVE: The study aims to investigate what design practitioners and healthcare facility managers deem as important benchmarking metrics worldwide, investigating country differences in benchmarking usage and which metrics are prioritized. BACKGROUND: Benchmarking is a regular practice in the healthcare sector, both for clinical and managerial aspects to compare, measure, and improve standardized processes. However, limited knowledge is available about benchmarking procedures in hospital planning, design, and construction. METHODS: A web-based survey was designed, revised, and pilot-tested in five countries; it was adjusted according to local experts' suggestions and submitted globally via SoSci multilingual platform to persons involved in hospital design, research, construction, and facility management. It was composed of closed questions on 5-point Likert-type scale ranking frequency or importance and open-ended questions divided into six sections. Two hundred and eighty full responses have been collected. Statistical analysis was performed via PowerBI and R-Studio, while qualitative analysis was performed via MAXQDA. RESULTS: The findings reported allow for both specific insights per each country or category as well as enabling general considerations of a practice that is becoming always more international with 30%-50% of respondents working in the international context. The evaluation of the survey highlights the most important benchmarks, among others. For example, for respondents from the top five countries (Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the United States), the most important metric for benchmark comparability is whether the project was new construction, new construction attached to an existing hospital, or interior renovation. Construction date, client type (public vs. private), and country of location were also generally rated as the most important metrics by respondents. Other metrics that were consistently rated as important globally included inpatient unit layout, walking distances, number of floors, and whether all patient rooms are private. Space-related metrics are considered very important elements in the design and planning of healthcare facilities worldwide. Regarding cost-related metrics, all countries consider the ratio construction cost per building gross area as the most important. CONCLUSIONS: Benchmarking emerges as a relevant tool for hospital design and planning as it can support efficiency, standardization, and confidence; currently, benchmarking is still underutilized due to the challenge of international comparison, access to data outside each specific company, and variation design metrics nationally. Benchmarking strategies should be further investigated to support knowledge exchange and to ensure reliable and comparable information globally.

Toward a Future Orientation: A Supportive Mental Health Facility Environment.

BACKGROUND: The provision of supportive environments is essential in clinical and environmental psychology. Mental health disorders are a major issue, and the experience of being at a mental health facility is affected by numerous factors related to the building's design. AIM: The aim of this study is to explore the expectations of a mental health facility planning group regarding the potential impact of a supportive design on patients' mental health and staff's therapeutic practices when planning and designing a new mental health facility. METHODS: The new mental health facility is a case study and data were collected through qualitative in-depth interviews with nine participants and analyzed using a thematic analysis. The participants came from a mental health facility planning group in a new mental health facility in Norway. RESULTS: The overall expectation of the new building was related to a future orientation to support patients' mental health and therapeutic practices. Three main themes were identified: toward a future orientation, supportive building design, and work environment. CONCLUSIONS: Supportive environments are expected to influence patients' mental health and staff's therapeutic practices, including providing options for novel treatment needs in contrast to older and more outdated buildings that are perceived as hindering appropriate treatment conditions.

Be prepared and do the best you can: a focus group study with staff on the care environment at Swedish secure youth homes.

PURPOSE: This study examined staff members' experiences of the institutional care environment within secure youth homes. METHODS: Data were collected through three focus group discussions with 17 staff members at two secure youth homes. Subsequently, a thematic analysis was conducted. RESULTS: The analysis indicated two main themes: risk management and damage control in a restricted environment and compensating and reconstructing ordinariness-trying to make the best of it; each theme had three subthemes. The care environment seems to be experienced by staff as characterized by conflicting demands, thus constituting a gap between needs and what is possible to achieve-a balancing act that constitutes a constant struggle. CONCLUSIONS: The staff members' constant struggle could be interpreted as conflicting moral and instrumental demands; they know what the youths need, but the environment of the secure youth homes demands the decorous behaviour of sociomaterial control practices-rather than care practices.

Impact of Birthing Room Design on Maternal Childbirth Experience: Results From the Room4Birth Randomized Trial.

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of the birthing room design on nulliparous women's childbirth experience up to 1 year after birth. BACKGROUND: Although it is known that the birth environment can support or hinder birth processes, the impact of the birthing room design on maternal childbirth experience over time is insufficiently studied. METHODS: The Room4Birth randomized controlled trial was conducted at a labor ward in Sweden. Nulliparous women in active stage of spontaneous labor were randomized (n = 406) to either a regular birthing room (n = 202) or a new birthing room designed with more person-centered considerations (n = 204). Childbirth experiences were measured 2 hr, 3 months, and 12 months after birth by using a Visual Analogue Scale of Overall Childbirth Experience (VAS-OCE), the Fear of Birth Scale (FOBS), and the Childbirth Experience Questionnaire (CEQ2). RESULTS: Women randomized to the new room had a more positive childbirth experience reported on the VAS-OCE 3 months (p = .002) and 12 months (p = .021) after birth compared to women randomized to a regular room. Women in the new room also scored higher in the total CEQ2 score (p = .039) and within the CEQ2 subdomain own capacity after 3 months (p = .028). The remaining CEQ2 domains and the FOBS scores did not differ between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: These findings show that a birthing room offering more possibilities to change features and functions in the room according to personal needs and requirements, positively affects the childbirth experience of nulliparous women 3 and 12 months after they have given birth.

Room4Birth - The effect of giving birth in a hospital birthing room designed with person-centred considerations: A Swedish randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate if a birthing room designed with person-centred considerations improves labour and birth outcomes for nulliparous women when compared to regular birthing rooms. METHODS: A randomised controlled trial was conducted at a Swedish labour ward between January 2019 and October 2020. Nulliparous women in spontaneous labour were randomised either to a birthing room designed with person-centred considerations (New room) or a Regular room. The primary outcome was a composite of four variables: vaginal non-instrumental birth; no oxytocin augmentation; postpartum blood loss < 1000 ml; and a positive childbirth experience. To detect a difference of 8% between the groups, 1274 study participants were needed, but the trial was terminated early due to consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. RESULTS: A total of 406 women were randomised; 204 to the New room and 202 to the Regular room. There was no significant difference in the primary outcome between the groups (42.2% versus 35.1%; odds ratio: 1.35, 95% Confidence Interval 0.90-2.01; p = 0.18). Participants in the New room used epidural analgesia to a lower extent (54.4% versus 65.3%, relative risk: 0.83, 95% Confidence Interval 0.71-0.98; p = 0.03) and reported to a higher degree that the room contributed to a sense of safety, control, and integrity (p=<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The hypothesis that the New room would improve the primary outcome could not be verified. Considering the early discontinuation of the study, results should be interpreted with caution. Nevertheless, analyses of our secondary outcomes emphasise the experiential value of the built birth environment in improving care for labouring women.

Women's Experiences of Physical Features in a Specially Designed Birthing Room: A Mixed-Methods Study in Sweden.

AIM: To explore women's experiences of physical features in a birthing room designed to be adaptable to personal wishes and needs during labor and birth. BACKGROUND: Childbirth is a central life event influenced by numerous factors, including the healthcare environment; however, there is insufficient knowledge on how the physical design affects women during birth. METHODS: This study was part of a randomized controlled trial in the Room4Birth research project, including women randomized to receive care in a new birthing room designed with physical features changeable according to personal wishes. Data consisted of responses to two questions analyzed with descriptive statistics (n = 202) and semi-structured interviews analyzed for content (n = 19). RESULTS: A total of 93.6% (n = 189) assessed the physical features in the birthing room as meaningful to a very high or high extent. The overall impression of the room was positive and exceeded women's expectations. They felt welcomed and strengthened by the room, which shifted the focus to a more positive emotional state. The room differed from traditional hospital birthing rooms, contained familiar features that maintained integrity, and had space for companions. The variety of physical features was appreciated. Of nine listed physical features, the bathtub was ranked most important, followed by the projection of nature scenery, and dimmable lighting, but the room as a whole appeared most important. CONCLUSIONS: When planning and designing hospital-based birthing rooms, it is crucial to offer possibilities to adapt the room and physical features according to personal wishes.

The Swedish Health Promoting Healthcare network and the built environment.

The Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) networks, founded by the World Health Organisation, support the introduction of health promotion in healthcare. This development involves the creation of a health promoting built environment. However, few studies have explored the HPH in relation to the built environments, and it is unclear how HPH-networks incorporate the built environment in their work. The study therefore examined the Swedish HPH-Network in relation to the built environment. The mixed-method study included data from (i) key online material from the Swedish network, (ii) a survey with open-ended questions of representatives of the networks' workgroups and (iii) semi-structured interviews with the built environment workgroup. The study showed that the built environment is unevenly and incoherently incorporated in the network. Moreover, there is more attention for healing and healthy rather than health-promotive strategies, indicating a knowledge gap. Descriptions of the health promoting built environment are diverse, and address design features, design strategies or indicate places for health promotion interventions. The descriptions of the built environment are combined with various HPH goals and population groups. To utilize the built environment as a resource for HPHs, the networks should consider incorporating the built environment in documents and action plans at all organizational levels.

Flexibility during the COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Healthcare Facility Assessment Tools for Resilient Evaluation.

Healthcare facilities are facing huge challenges due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Around the world, national healthcare contingency plans have struggled to cope with the population health impact of COVID-19, with healthcare facilities and critical care systems buckling under the extraordinary pressures. COVID-19 has starkly highlighted the lack of reliable operational tools for assessing the level sof flexibility of a hospital building to support strategic and agile decision making. The aim of this study was to modify, improve and test an existing assessment tool for evaluating hospital facilities flexibility and resilience. We followed a five-step process for collecting data by (i) doing a literature review about flexibility principles and strategies, (ii) reviewing healthcare design guidelines, (iii) examining international healthcare facilities case studies, (iv) conducting a critical review and optimization of the existing tool, and (v) assessing the usability of the evaluation tool. The new version of the OFAT framework (Optimized Flexibility Assessment Tool) is composed of nine evaluation parameters and subdivided into measurable variables with scores ranging from 0 to 10. The pilot testing of case studies enabled the assessment and verification the OFAT validity and reliability in support of decision makers in addressing flexibility of hospital design and/or operations. Healthcare buildings need to be designed and built based on principles of flexibility to accommodate current healthcare operations, adapting to time-sensitive physical transformations and responding to contemporary and future public health emergencies.

Literature Review: Evidence-Based Health Outcomes and Perceptions of the Built Environment in Pediatric Hospital Facilities.

PROBLEM: The current knowledge of evidence-based design for adults is not always implemented when hospital buildings are designed. Scientific data are sparse on the effects of hospital design in pediatric settings on health outcomes in children, parents, and staff. The objective of this review is to determine the evidence-based impact of the built environment in pediatric hospital facilities on health outcomes in children, parents, and staff. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: A systematic literature review was carried out on the electronic databases Cochrane Library, Embase, Medline and CINAHL from the period of 2008 to 2019. The review considered studies using either quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methodologies. SAMPLE: Out of 1414 reviewed articles the result is based on eight included articles. RESULTS: Two of these eight articles included health outcomes. The other six articles presented results on measures of perceptions and/or satisfaction for children, parents or staff with the built environment when transitioning to a new or renovated facility. These were generally higher for the new compared to the old facility. CONCLUSIONS: Given the small number of studies addressing the question posed in this review, no firm conclusions can be drawn. IMPLICATIONS: The review illustrates the need for more research in the pediatric setting assessing the evidence-based health outcomes of aspects of physical environmental design in pediatric hospitals or units in children, parents and staff.

"If you don't behave, you're in real shit, you don't get outside the doors"-a phenomenological hermeneutic study of adolescents' lived experiences of the socio-spatial environment of involuntary institutional care.

In Sweden, according to law, adolescents with extensive psychosocial problems, substance abuse or criminal behaviour can be cared for in institutions. The two-fold aim of these institutions (to rehabilitate and incarcerate) puts special demands to their socio-spatial context.Purpose: To elucidate adolescents' lived experiences of the socio-spatial environment at special youth homes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (SiS) in Sweden.Methods: Data collected through Photovoice and analysed employing a phenomenological hermeneutical method. Fourteen adolescents (age 15-19) were asked to photograph their environment, and this was followed up by in-depth interviews.Results: Two themes emerged from the material: the dense walls of institutional life and create and capture the caring space. The socio-spatial environment can be seen as an additional "other" that distances the adolescents and the staff from one another. Negotiating with their behaviour, the adolescents strive to present themselves as worthy of increased degrees of freedom and ultimately access to the desired outside life.Conclusions: In an institutional setting dominated by a security and criminal justice logic, words appear to have less impact than the environment. The adolescents appear to understand themselves through the socio-spatial other, causing reinforced feelings of social exclusion.

Room4Birth - the effect of an adaptable birthing room on labour and birth outcomes for nulliparous women at term with spontaneous labour start: study protocol for a randomised controlled superiority trial in Sweden.

BACKGROUND: An important prerequisite for optimal healthcare is a secure, safe and comfortable environment. There is little research on how the physical design of birthing rooms affects labour, birth, childbirth experiences and birthing costs. This protocol outlines the design of a randomised controlled superiority trial (RCT) measuring and comparing effects and experiences of two types of birthing rooms, conducted in one labour ward in Sweden. METHODS/DESIGN: Following ethics approval, a study design was developed and tested for feasibility in a pilot study, which led to some important improvements for conducting the study. The main RCT started January 2019 and includes nulliparous women presenting to the labour ward in active, spontaneous labour and who understand either Swedish, Arabic, Somali or English. Those who consent are randomised on a 1:1 ratio to receive care either in a regular room (control group) or in a newly built birthing room designed with a person-centred approach and physical aspects (such as light, silencer, media installation offering programmed nature scenes with sound, bathtub, birth support tools) that are changeable according to a woman's wishes (intervention group). The primary efficacy endpoint is a composite score of four outcomes: no use of oxytocin for augmentation of labour; spontaneous vaginal births (i.e. no vaginal instrumental birth or caesarean section); normal postpartum blood loss (i.e. bleeding < 1000 ml); and a positive overall childbirth experience (7-10 on a scale of 1-10). To detect a difference in the composite score of 8% between the groups we need 1274 study participants (power of 80% with significance level 0.05). Secondary outcomes include: the four variables in the primary outcome; other physical outcomes of labour and birth; women's self-reported experiences (the birthing room, childbirth, fear of childbirth, health-related quality of life); and measurement of costs in relation to the hospital stay for mother and neonate. Additionally, an ethnographic study with participant observations will be conducted in both types of birthing rooms. DISCUSSION: The findings aim to guide the design of birthing rooms that contribute to optimal quality of hospital-based maternity care. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03948815. Registered 13 May 2019-retrospectively registered.

A Study of Relationships Between Content in Documents From Health Service Operational Plans and Documents From the Planning of New Healthcare Environments.

AIM: The aim was to investigate the content and quality of the governing documents created in the planning and design phase of new healthcare environments and in the related healthcare strategic and operational plans. BACKGROUND: Quality deficits in buildings can often be traced back to the initial stages in the planning and design phase. Although large investments have been made to improve the process of planning new healthcare environments and linking the requirements to health service strategies, healthcare organizations rarely relate their strategy goals to the built environment. METHOD: A retrospective review of documents created in the planning and design stages of new healthcare environments and the operational plans of the target organizations was conducted. RESULTS: The organizational operational plans did not contain any statements or information about the built environment or how a building could or should support the organization's goals. Important information was frequently absent from the documents governing the planning and design of buildings. The documents lacked information about what and how to follow-up and what to measure once a construction project had been completed. There were no references to evidence. CONCLUSIONS: Poor documentation might undermine the quality of the planning and design phase and ultimately the opportunity to create environments that support health outcomes. Therefore, more emphasis must be placed on the importance of documentation but above all to strengthen and clarify the relationship between the healthcare organization strategy to achieve an effective and efficient care process and the intention made in the planning and design process.

Conceptualizing Health Promotion in Relation to Outpatient Healthcare Building Design: A Scoping Review.

OBJECTIVE:: This review explored different conceptualizations of health promotion in the context of, and in relation to, outpatient building design. BACKGROUND:: Today's healthcare organizations are implementing holistic healthcare approaches such as health promotion, while simultaneously increasing their outpatient services. These health promotion approaches, focused on empowering people to take control of their health, are expected to have implications for the outpatient healthcare building design. Yet there is limited knowledge what these may be. A review of the literature on the current state of the art is thus needed to enable and support dialog on future healthcare building design. METHOD:: A scoping review of 4,506 papers, collected from four databases and three scientific journals in 2015, resulted in 14 papers relating health promotion to building design and outpatient healthcare. From the subsequent content analysis, multiple common themes and subthemes emerged. RESULTS:: The review reveals diverse range of health promotion interpretations, three health promotion perspectives (health behavior, health equity, and sense of coherence), associated design approaches, design objectives, health-related outcomes, building features, and solutions. CONCLUSIONS:: While diverse health promotion perspectives might merely represent variations in focus, these differences become problematic when relating to building design. To support further dialogs on development of health promotion in, and in relation to, the build environment, there is a need to strengthen the health promotion vocabulary. Further research is needed to compare different design approaches and how these can be combined to minimize contradicting implications for building design.

Shared decision making in designing new healthcare environments-time to begin improving quality.

BACKGROUND: Successful implementation of new methods and models of healthcare to achieve better patient outcomes and safe, person-centered care is dependent on the physical environment of the healthcare architecture in which the healthcare is provided. Thus, decisions concerning healthcare architecture are critical because it affects people and work processes for many years and requires a long-term financial commitment from society. In this paper, we describe and suggest several strategies (critical factors) to promote shared-decision making when planning and designing new healthcare environments. DISCUSSION: This paper discusses challenges and hindrances observed in the literature and from the authors extensive experiences in the field of planning and designing healthcare environments. An overview is presented of the challenges and new approaches for a process that involves the mutual exchange of knowledge among various stakeholders. Additionally, design approaches that balance the influence of specific and local requirements with general knowledge and evidence that should be encouraged are discussed. We suggest a shared-decision making and collaborative planning and design process between representatives from healthcare, construction sector and architecture based on evidence and end-users' perspectives. If carefully and systematically applied, this approach will support and develop a framework for creating high quality healthcare environments.