Posts filed under ‘Patient Safety’
Why is Patient Safety and Design So Important? (Part 2)
Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, CA
If you are familiar with what the CDC requires for different types of protection such as “contact precaution”― there are different levels of precaution depending on what the pathogens are―and some of them require caregivers to don something akin to a space suit including headgear that has a battery pack and breathing apparatus. Where are you going to store all of that? You don’t want to have an ugly cart that looks like it came from Sears Roebuck with that stuff outside the door, yet the caregivers can’t run down the corridor to a decentralized supply room to get it. Where are you going to locate all that? At this time I don’t see anybody addressing this. Now we have all these multi-drug resistant infections that every hospital is dealing with and it’s a major problem that’s very hard to control. There needs to be something in the corridor, perhaps built into the wall, for storage of personal protection equipment. You can’t keep these supplies in the room in a nurse server because they will become contaminated.
Why is Patient Safety and Design So Important? (Part 1)
Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, CA
I’m the first to say that a nice environment is important and who wouldn’t want to be in a nice environment versus an ugly or uncomfortable one, but I guess it’s analogous to Maslow’s’ Hierarchy of Needs. The most important thing is safety. You might have a great patient experience in a beautifully designed, harmonious environment but, if you don’t come out of it alive, does it really matter or if you get one of those serious infections that can change the course of your life forever. What is the point?
Jain Malkin
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