Patient Customized Personalized Experience: The Hospital Room of the Future

Hospital and healthcare design is quickly changing. As exciting new technologies come out daily, architects, doctors, and healthcare administrators are presented with an opportunity to improve patient experiences through incorporating the latest technological advances into facility design. By incorporating these new technologies, healthcare design can help patients feel more comfortable and relaxed, and thus improve recovery time.

Allowing patients to customize their own hospital environment can come in a variety of ways not necessarily requiring an entirely new facility. One thing patients often differ on is their lighting preferences. Some patients may be extremely sensitive to bright light and favor a dimmer, softer lighting while others may prefer lighting that more closely simulates a bright, natural sunlight. The range of patient lighting preference can easily be accommodated by an architect who properly understand the facilitation of differing patient lighting preferences. An architect who understand this can design a room in which patients' beds are located in a position that allows them access to a full range of light dimmers and various lighting options.

Lighting is only one way in which patients often have differing preferences. Providing patients with a way in which they can control the temperature of their room would allow more patients to experience maximum comfort. Like lighting, temperature controls could be strategically placed within reach of patients.

One area that is especially promising for patient room customization is the use of voice control. Imagine a hospital room in which the patient can control everything with only their voice. They can change the channel on the T.V., lower the temperature in the room, and call their loved ones with only the use of their voice. Advances in voice recognition technology have allowed such a hospital room to be taken from our imaginations to reality. Patient experience has never been better and will only continue to improve as designers and healthcare administrators continue to collaborate on designing better facilities that allow for maximum care room customization.

Is It Expensive to Transform Schools into Learning Tools?

A school designed to be an interactive learning tool sounds like it would cost much more than the generic traditional school. This doesn't have to be the case. Every school building has the potential to be a powerful learning tool. Transforming a standard learning environment into a dynamic teaching tool can be as simple as a bit of paint marking the length and height of walls.

Replacing a standard ceiling tile with a piece of transparent plastic is another way to create a learning opportunity. There are numerous potential lessons above our heads. A teacher could design a lesson around the insulation or heating and air conditioning that would be visible were a ceiling tile to be made transparent.

In the cafeteria area, simple design tweaks could create an opportunity to teach the students about safe food preparation and proper nutrition. When an architect sees the design of a school as a potential teaching tool, the possibilities become endless.

Personal Learning Environments - Fiction or Future?

Personal Learning Module

Personal Learning Module - Can existing schools adapt to become laboratories for personal learning? 

With the increasing availability of portable lessons and educational opportunities outside the classroom, one of the challenges that communities face is how to transform traditional schools into exciting personal learning laboratories.

The study module picture was designed for middle and high school students and can be located in what was once a traditional media center. The media center can be transformed into a interactive, collaborative space that has the opportunity for various levels of engagement with students and teachers, from large groups to individual "pods" that can be customized to each students emotions (color changing LED) , learning styles and interests.

The Learning Environments Studio (LES) at McAllister & Associates Architecture is committed to exploring new solutions for schools to be transformed into dynamic learning labs for tomorrows students.

Incorporating Residential Design Elements Into Heathcare Facilities

An increasing amount of evidence is being released to support the theory that patients heal faster in environments in which they feel most comfortable. One of the best ways to promote comfort in a heathcare facility among patients, family, and staff is to design an environment that feels natural to everyone involved. People tend to feel most natural and comfortable in their homes, thus an extremely effective way to make a facility feel most natural is to incorporate residential design elements.

Informal lounges and café areas strategically sprinkled throughout a facility can help break up the monotony of a typical hospital layout. These casual areas give visitors a place to relax to check their emails or make a call. Oftentimes, family members and friends of a patient will stay several days with the patient, and these areas can help give a much needed psychological release.

Improvements in building material technology for healthcare application have expanded architects' horizons in choosing materials. Textures and materials that were once not suitable for healthcare use because they didn't meet the strict sanitation requirement have now been optimized for utilization in heathcare facilities. In most cases, not only have these materials been made available for healthcare use, but they provide a net improvement in sanitation and infection control when compared to the outdated materials.

Use of color and light are also two major factors when implementing residential design elements into healthcare facilities. A typical hospital has dull, monotonous lighting which can promote feelings of fear and/or discomfort. This problem can be easily fixed by combining more natural light sources with non-florescent, direct, and indirect task lighting to create ideal lighting conditions. Color choices that provoke feelings of comfort can be chosen to further improve the patient experience. Use of wood grains with a combination of warm and cool colors will help patients feel most at home.

One of the best parts of incorporating residential design elements into healthcare design is that does not require building a brand new facility. Residential design can be incorporated into an existing facility through a simple redesign, thus saving money and time.

Schools As Learning Tools

The world we live in is full of  educational opportunities. School facilities have the potential to be potent learning tools when designed properly. Most architects choose to follow the traditional school design prescription, failing to utilize the possible math and science lessons inherent in building construction.

For example, how many students know the dimensions of their classroom? A standard classroom wall can be turned into an informative learning tool when the room is designed to include markers indicating the measurement of the wall. One classroom wall could be measured in feet while the opposite wall could be marked in meters to teach the students the difference between the English and metric systems of measurement. A teacher could design a lesson based on the measurements in which the students find the area of the room using the measurements on the walls.

Another example of potential teaching opportunities in school design is the presentation of the electrical system. What if portions of a school's electrical system were left visible by being encased in glass? This could be a springboard for learning not only about watts and amps, but also how the school is connected to the cities electrical grid.

Schools are full of learning opportunities when the architect chooses to view the school building as having the potential to function as an interactive museum in addition to its normal functions. At McAllister and Associates we strive to design every school to be a teaching aid to the teachers.