The design of healthcare facilities: knowledge, methods and effectiveness

Bouazza, Touria (2019) The design of healthcare facilities: knowledge, methods and effectiveness. Doctoral thesis, Nothumbria University.

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Abstract

Apparent deficiencies in the design quality of healthcare buildings raise an important issue for designers and users. It has been reported that designers have failed in fulfilling the clients’ expectations and requirements, which has resulted in a ‘design performance gap’. This research focuses on the design of hospital premises and the associated performance gap. The purpose of this study was to compare the way designers perform with the satisfaction levels of healthcare users and having done so, to produce a better understanding of how this might be improved.
The first stage was a literature review of existing work on the assessment of design performance, performance gaps and ways of closing them, with particular focus on the key issues in the design of healthcare facilities. Two data collection methods were adopted: two surveys that encompassed Likert scale and open-ended questions, and a set of in-depth interviews. The first survey was assigned to designers to explore their awareness and response to important problems encountered in the design of healthcare facilities. This was followed up by in-depth interviews with selected designers. The second survey questioned the satisfaction of healthcare users about aspects of the design of their healthcare environment. Hypothetically, a variety of outcomes was possible based on the designers’ awareness (or lack of) of key issues in healthcare facility design, their response (or lack of) to these, and the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of healthcare users. In fact, two situations emerged (1) that in some respects designers are aware of the issues, think they are addressing them, and users are satisfied; (2) in other respects, however, although designers are still aware of the issues and believe they are addressing them, users are nevertheless dissatisfied.
The conclusion is that designers have insufficient information on certain user requirements. Better user information is paramount for better design decision-making and for the quality of healthcare facility design. A conceptual framework and matrices were developed that could raise awareness of this and help in improving design decision-making through improved Post-Occupancy Evaluation and ultimately, with digital technology, be captured in a knowledge base. This framework and associated matrices have been developed at a relatively high level, and further work would be required to operationalize them for use in actual healthcare projects.

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