The best evidence will guide us

In 2004 researchers from Texas A&M University and Georgia Tech combed through several thousand scientific articles and identified more than 600 studies—most in top peer-reviewed journals—on how hospital design can affect patient health. They compiled the findings of these studies into a report on the best practices in hospital design. This report has both inspired us and guided us in planning the new facility.

The following is an excerpt from the report.

"… The United States is facing one of the largest hospital building booms in U.S. history. As a result of a confluence of the need to replace aging 1970s hospitals, population shifts in the United States, the graying of the baby boom generation, and the introduction of new technologies, the United States will spend more than $16 billion for hospital construction in 2004, and this will rise to more than $20 billion per year by the end of the decade. These hospitals will remain in place for decades.

“This once-in-a-lifetime construction program provides an opportunity to rethink hospital design, and especially to consider how improved hospital design can help reduce staff stress and fatigue and increase effectiveness in delivering care, improve patient safety, reduce patient and family stress and improve outcomes, and improve overall healthcare quality.”

—The Role of the Physical Environment in the Hospital of the 21st Century: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity (2004).