Transforming a poor patient experience into human-centered one requires an evidence-based approach that takes a close look at how environments promote healing, comfort and happy kids.
Orlando-based, 1,200-bed, Florida Hospital for Children had a solid reputation as a first-class, well-respected health care facility. However, two years of patient and family satisfaction scores put the facility in the bottom ten percent of hospitals nationwide. A massive functional and emotional facelift was needed to boost the hospital’s ratings and better serve its young patients and fretful parents. THRIVE* partner Trent Kahute interceded to help the institution go beyond architectural style and use human-centered design to define insights and peer into the minds of its staff, patients and their families. The goal? Create a space that reduced anxiety and promoted efficiency, healing and togetherness.
Current floor plans were function-driven but not particularly efficient. Rooms were friendly but hardly homey. We used the practice of medical ethnography to shadow staff and patients on their daily rounds to create patient experience maps that showed hospital administrators how people really used the facility. Then we defined and designed the space in a needs-driven manner, from the inside out.
Common hospital design gripes like cramped patient rooms and remote nurses’ stations produce barriers to natural human connection, keeping everyone—patients, staff and families—disconnected and on edge. We put people back in touch throughout the facility with the goal of enhancing both efficiency and healing.
Obstructed sight lines between nurse stations and patient rooms left staff unable to visually connect with and monitor goings-on in the ward. We gave nurses a workspace that functioned “in the round”, creating 360-degree monitoring stations that offered everyone an extra set of eyes and facilitated the human connection nurses craved.
For patients and their families, hospital rooms were uncomfortable at best and stressful at worst. None of the bad feelings helped healing. We gave control of the room experience back to patients with ambient light and sound technology designed to help kids feel less anxious—and be more like ‘kids’ again. Redesigned floor plans were human-centered giving families a comfortable place close by without putting them between physicians and patients.
Since the redesign, the hospital has improved its operational efficiency and is attracting new patients. More importantly, employee morale has soared, employee retention rates have improved, the hospital’s pediatric emergency room is now ranked top in the nation and patient/family satisfaction scores have not only rebounded, they’ve skyrocketed. Thus, Florida Hospital for Children can now offer a human-centered experience blueprint to pediatric healthcare facilities around the world.
