The question, “How do designers make a business case for creating healthcare environments that affect not only the organization’s clinical patient outcomes, but also staff recruitment and retention, and facility operational efficiency and productivity?” is answered by acclaimed healthcare design expert Jain Malkin in this Web Cast. Evidence-based design of healing environments looks at building design not only as physical space, but includes the total sensory environment of sight, sound, touch and smell. According to Malkin, it is design based on research findings that are key to optimal healing environments that not only benefit patients, caregivers and family members, but also improve a healthcare organization’s bottom line.

The design of environments that reduce patient stress and improve healing time requires the understanding of current research in five major categories: connection to nature, options and choices, pleasant diversions, access to social support, and elimination of environmental stressors. Malkin provides insight into these categories by offering compelling results from seminal research projects that have helped change the way healthcare facilities are being designed in the 21st century. She outlines many examples of healing environment design that have led to measurable, positive outcomes—among them the Pebble Projects conducted by The Center for Health Design, the leading organization analyzing the cost benefits of evidence-based design interventions in healthcare environments. At the conclusion of the Web Cast, Denise Guerin also provides a brief tutorial on evidence-based design to acquaint designers who are new to the concept how research can take their work to the next level.

Malkin is president of Jain Malkin Inc. (www.jainmalkin.com), a San Diego-based interior design and architecture firm specializing in healthcare facilities. A leader in the field, she has lectured widely and written numerous articles on the psychological effects of healthcare environments. Malkin serves on the board of The Center for Health Design and teaches at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Mass., and is often a keynote speaker at conferences on the design of healing environments. She is the author of several books on healthcare design, including her newest book, Medical and Dental Space Planning: A Comprehensive Guide to Design, Equipment and Clinical Procedures (third edition), and Hospital Interior Architecture. Malkin has been named by California Medicine magazine as one of California’s 100 most interesting and influential healthcare leaders. She was awarded the 1997 Hyde Chair of Excellence by the University of Nebraska’s College of Architecture.

The question, “How do buildings affect productivity at work?” is answered by Adrian Leaman in this engaging Web Cast. Leaman professes that although productivity can be measured by subjective means, this form of analysis is not always satisfactory to company management. Real data on “perceived productivity” are rare and what exist typically are not presented in a way that designers, facility managers, and corporate decision makers can easily comprehend. Design considerations that can improve workspace productivity include, but are not limited to, environments providing “reasonable outside awareness”; environments that are not too hot, noisy or overcrowded; and ones that provide some personal control. Office spaces are most productive when their designs accomplish their original intent and their users also agree that they do so. Leaman warns that “perceived productivity gains are only made in about 30 percent of new buildings.” Corporate management and facility managers should be skeptical of inflated claims.

Leaman specializes in the management and application of feedback from building occupants about their needs and requirements and currently is secretary of the Usable Buildings Trust, online at www.usablebuildings.co.uk. Leaman carried out pioneering research work on occupant health in buildings in the 1980s and productivity studies in the 1990s. Much of his work is now done in collaboration with energy and building technology specialist Bill Bordass of William Bordass Associates.

In addition to his work with the Usable Buildings Trust, Leaman is the managing director of Building Use Studies (BUS) headquarted in London, which counts among its clients the United Nations Development Program, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Department of Education and Science (UK), British Airways, Nokia, Unilever and Xerox, among a wide international client base. Leaman is a prolific author and has written more than 150 articles, including several on workplace productivity. He has taught at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies at the University of York and the Department of Real Estate and Project Management at the University of Delft, Netherlands, and has had appointments at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the Bartlett School at University College, London.

Universal Design Intervention for Stress Reduction, featuring Cynthia Leibrock, MA
Can the built environment reduce stress and prevent depression? Research substantiates that the sensory cues offered by the built environment can improve sleep and reduce anxiety. Elevated respiration and pain perception levels can be reduced. In healthcare environments, research has shown that interior design can increase patient visits by the family. The built environment can even reduce medication, length of stay in hospitals, and length of labor during birthing. In a well-designed environment, infants require less feeding time to experience increased weight gain. All of these results are possible through the application of universal design research.

Stress caused by disorientation can raise blood pressure, increase fatigue, cause headaches and produce feelings of helplessness. Learn how design of the space can improve orientation, wayfinding, and memory. Discover research supporting the fact that interior design reduces staff turnover. Leave this course with a new attitude and with applied universal design research that can make all your projects less stressful.

Cynthia Leibrock, MA is an award winning author, international lecturer, lobbyist, and a universal designer with over 30 years of experience through her firm, Easy Access to Health, LLC. Her mission is to improve the lives of older and disabled people through universal design. She is a founding member of ASID and an honorary charter member of IIDA. Cynthia also teaches two courses for the architecture department of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Cynthia has written three books: Beautiful Barrier Free, Beautiful Universal Design, and her newest book, Design Details for Health applies universal design to healthcare facilities.

Sustainable Design/LEED, featuring Kevin Flynn, AIA

More and more owners, clients and campuses are requiring that their projects be LEED certified, often without full understanding of what that really means or entails. This case study presentation of several projects designed prior to and after the seemingly national adoption of LEED as a design guideline, tool, and requirement. The presentation illustrates the many benefits, challenges, conflicts, and shortcomings of working with LEED or other design guides through direct experience of using them on projects. The presentation demonstrates the often difficult choices made during design that have significant impacts during construction and use of the building. And yes, both environmental and economic factors are considered.

Kevin Flynn, AIA, LEED AP, is the founding principal of EcoDEEP, an architecture, research, and planning firm with an acute focus on sustainable, high performance solutions. EcoDEEP's work promises that good design and environmental betterment are inherently interdependent and that all design must be simple, economically viable, and socially equitable.

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