A Review on Future Directions in Hospital Spatial Designs with a Focus on Patient Experience

Abstract

Patient centred approaches are getting significance in Today's healthcare industry. While this trend influences the sector very broadly from user centred medical device designs to the provision of medical service itself, there is an increasing need of designers working in this field in an effort to enhance patient experience. As Hospitals are being one of the important components of the healthcare system, the attention on their architectural and spatial designs-from a patient centred perspective-has also increased. This paper presents the findings of a literature review study regarding hospital patient rooms from a patient-centred design perspective and discusses certain concepts in an effort to enhance patient experience in hospital spatial designs. As a result; a list of future directions on designing patient rooms are inferred with a focus on patient experience.

Therapeutic Gardens – A healing environment for optimizing the health care experience of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients: A narrative review  

“…This is consistent with research evidences which suggest that interventions promoting neural plasticity can induce significant cognitive gains especially in patients with mild AD [106]. These improvements have involved various non-invasive, or non-pharmacological interventions which have increasingly gained attention in recent years [107,108], such as in virtual reality, 3D simulation technologies and intelligent environments [43,109]. Furthermore, investigators have revealed that optimizing personal control of spaces by patients, contributes to their emotional comfort which facilitates the therapeutic process of hospitalized patients [110].…”

“…The conscientious integration of these environmental factors and alternative therapies can generate an optimal healing environment [42]. The effectiveness of how hospital designs can improve patient therapeutic wellbeing or experience has been discussed in the literature [43,44].…”

“…VR technology has also been applied from a 3D simulation perspective in the hospital environment as mock-up tools to compare and assess patient responses in a real-world design [112]. These aspects range from testing different interior design elements in a hospital room, emotional responses of participants through 3D simulations and the application of photographic sky compositions as an alternative to other forms of nature stimuli [43,113]. Similarly, a feasibility study with image-based rendered VR in Patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia revealed that patients reported high satisfaction, interest in tasks and high feelings of security, as well as low discomfort, anxiety and fatigue [114].…”

Analysis of the Morphological Design Features of the Hospital Physical Facilities in Southwest, Nigeria

“…Also, the morphological (spatial con guration) approach from hospital perspectives and architectural con guration of a space is more than just the geometric organization. According to Cifter and Cifter (2017), hospital buildings are important components of the healthcare system; therefore, proper attention must be paid to their architectural and spatial designs.…”

The experiences of cancer patients within the material hospital environment: Three ways that materiality is affective

“…Indeed, Andrews et al (2014, p. 211) assert that there is "a growing realisation across health and social sciences that 'place matters' to health and healthcare." Despite early investigations which suggested that enhancing hospital environments -such as views through a window -can reduce patient recovery times (Ulrich, 1991;1984), the evidence of the positive impact of hospital environments on clinical outcomes has been modest, mixed and somewhat contingent (Selami et al, 2017;Williams, 1998). Nevertheless, without relinquishing the prospect of understanding the implications of hospital environments for clinical outcomes (direct or indirect), there is a large body of work examining the complex psychological, sociological and geographical relationships between hospital environments and quality healthcare which is grounded in expanded notions of health and wellbeing beyond biomedical definitions of being 'disease-free'.…”