Kaiser Permanente’s Sidney R. Garfield Innovation Center “is a living laboratory where ideas are tested and solutions are developed in a hands-on, mocked-up clinical environment. Many aspects of delivering healthcare can be innovated and examined at the Center using real-world scenarios and activities, such as simulations, technology testing, prototyping, product evaluations, and training.”

From an ADVANCE article:

“The center’s focus is to get front-line staff — the people who are delivering care — to come together and work with designers, architects and technologists to innovate or improve a physical space, a new technology or some type of work process,” explained Jennifer Ruzek, director of the center. “It’s really important that all the disciplines work together, because if you want to improve a complex process such as medication administration, nursing, pharmacy and physicians all need to come together.”

This is cool on multiple accounts—an organization has taken health care delivery innovation so seriously that they have created a center to facilitate continuous improvement.  The benefits:

“You can get large groups of people from different disciplines together, speaking the same language experientially, to reach consensus on what is the best design that meets their needs and the patients’ needs,” Ruzek said. “We’ve found that when you take people out of their day-to-day environment, a few things happen: First, they’re not distracted by what’s going on in a live facility. People begin to step back and think about the big picture. Nurses, as you know, are great at working around challenges. But here, you’re asking them to think differently — they come up with ideas that solve challenges, rather than just working around them.

“Second, we’ve found the experimental prototyping process at the Garfield Center speeds up decision-making. We rule out ideas that don’t work quickly and arrive at solutions faster.

“And third, it’s much easier to try out ideas in a mock environment rather than disrupting a real hospital unit or clinic.”

This makes so much sense, why are there not more organization sponsored dedicated environments to explore delivery innovations?

An emergency department visit is often a highly stressful situation.  That stress makes long waits longer, feelings of being ignored more prevalent, bad service worse.

Not often do people speak about a good experience at the E.D.  Considering the circumstances, great service in the E.D. isn’t going to make anyone enjoy the visit by any means.

Bad service makes the experience awful—and worth sharing with others.

This Letter to the Editor outlines two bad experiences separated by several months.  During the second visit “after about an hour of this unacceptable and potentially dangerous behavior” the party decided to leave the E.D. for another (read: a competitor) 25 miles away.

Admittedly, there are challenges when trying to improve E.D. experience.

However, improving patient experience is a must in the E.D.  For many it is the introduction to a hospital.  The environment is always hectic and always stressful.  Improving that experience means managing patient expectations.  It means making a concerted effort to sympathize with very ill patients (most do).  Patient loyalty should not be taken for granted.  A bad experience could mean potential patients avoid your organization—for all services.

(links h/t: Kevin MD)

Health Care Fine Art comments on a new look hospital in London.  There’s also a link to a post from last summer asking the question “Why No Cool Looking Hospitals?“  Read the post and the comments—there are some interesting thoughts.

One thought on why the newest of hospitals continue to utilize traditional architectural themes is the opportunity for expansion.  The boxy buildings make it easier to add floors or corridors without upsetting the design.  Medicine changes often and sometime those changes require new construction.

Anyway, hospital design is getting better.  The biggest challenge will come as we continue to update the Hill-Burton hospitals to allow, among other things (including functionality), natural light into buildings.