The current study provides empirical evidence of the link between environmental hazards and older adults' falling, which is useful for developing effective fall intervention design strategies.
The Veteran's Administration (VA), recognizing the potential influence that nurturing interior environments may have on patient well-being, has been designing and constructing mental health settings intended to calm, restore, and revive. Unfortunately, limited research investigates the links between the interior environment and mental health outcomes that can be used for guiding the design for these facilities. This paper seeks to provide a framework for designing person-centered mental health interiors that would be supportive of human factors for a healthcare organization's clinical and operational staff as well as Veterans. The framework is intended to assist healthcare providers in achieving mental health aims through thoughtful, evidence-based, person-centered design. Based on a review of the literature and case study investigations of three VA acute inpatient mental health units in the United States, the framework is comprised of six domains: Involve, Protect, Engage, Comfort, Personalize, and Sustain. These domains, informed by existing credible research and best practices, were vetted through post-hoc analysis of qualitative data gathered from interviews, focus groups, and/or listening sessions conducted with the three sites. The resultant Framework for Designing Person-Centered Mental Health Interiors for Veterans, developed based on the data and methodologies used in conducting this study, is meant as a complementary resource for informing future research, planning, design, and operation of acute inpatient mental health spaces. The research team's aim was to develop an accessible set of evidence-based environmental planning considerations to aid in the prioritization and development of person-centered mental health environments.
The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of design elements for elder‐friendly hospitals through a mail survey presented to 191 experts who work in the medical and design field in South Korea. To create applicable design dimensions based on a reliable interdisciplinary consensus, the respondents were asked to rate the importance of 33 design elements stemming from peer‐reviewed journal papers related to the healthcare environment for older adults. Independent t‐test and factor analysis were used for data analysis, and seven extracted factors were labeled “fall prevention,” “privacy,” “familiarity,” “wayfinding,” “social support,” “nature distraction,” and “infection prevention.” The significant finding is that both the medical and design groups considered patients' safety, such as preventing falls and infection, as a primary design concern. However, the results also show statistically significant different design perceptions between the medical and design groups in every factor category. The medical group tended to focus more on patients' physical health, while the design professionals placed greater importance on psychological and social health. Designers tended to focus more on design elements that have an indirect effect on patients' health, such as views of nature, privacy space, lighting, color, and wayfinding. Meanwhile, the medical group emphasized safety‐related design attributes such as handrails, safety bars, visual connection between staff and patients, and disinfecting procedures (i.e., hand‐washing). Analysis of these results can contribute to creating design guidelines for elder‐friendly hospitals and provide new knowledge for designers, planners, and facility managers to make practical decisions for design projects.
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