Dive Brief:
- Hospitals across the country are turning to architects to design facilities aimed at attracting new patients, and at accommodating the growing and aging population, reports NPR. The current spending on healthcare construction has reached the tens of billions, with costs going toward amenities such as technology and spa-like rooms.
- Part of what is shaping the future of facility design is the ACA, according to financial health policy analyst Allan Baumgarten. "As a result of the Affordable Care Act, there's a lot more emphasis on linking payment to measures of patient safety [and] measures of patient satisfaction," Baumgarten told NPR.
- These amenities do come with high price tags that patients, employers and insurers can expect to see passed along.
Dive Insight:
The trend toward improving facilities may not only improve patient satisfaction, but that of healthcare providers and facility workers as well.
NPR provides the example of UT Southwestern's Clements University Hospital in Dallas which "has an identity problem," it states, because the inside is more like an art gallery or spa. The facility doesn't have window curtains, to avoid dirtiness. Instead, the rooms have double-paned glass that can be clouded for privacy.
Perhaps the biggest innovation, however, is simply that the building is shaped like a W. The facility is designed so that nurses, who normally walk upwards of three miles each day in a traditional facility, will not have to go any further than eight patient beds.
Will the business model pay? According to NPR, north Texas-area hospitals are already charging insurers some of the highest rates in the US.
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