COVID-19: A Path Forward for Healthcare Design
The COVID-19 pandemic will irrevocably change healthcare delivery and the role of health and wellness in our communities. SmithGroup strategists and designers are exploring new ways to address these challenges and to help our clients design a better, more resilient future. Although the pandemic exposed many faults in our healthcare system, it has also revealed an unprecedented capacity for cooperation and innovation across the industry. Together, we are working to reshape our future healthcare environment, prioritizing advanced digital and engineering solutions, ensuring patient and staff safety, and, most importantly, maintaining the humanity that is at the core of all medical care.
DESIGN THINKING AND RESEARCH
A Framework for Assessing COVID-19 Impacts on Health Facilities
Our Path Forward framework can guide healthcare organizations through the spectrum of potential facility interventions needed to address the challenges of the pandemic. Administered in cooperation with our healthcare strategists, planners and designers, this tool can help organizations to assess and prioritize needs as we navigate through the crisis today, and plan for the post-pandemic future.
A Post-Pandemic Framework for Flexibility & Future-Proofing Ambulatory Care
Many Ambulatory Care and Surgery centers were forced to close as COVID-19 spread, depriving health systems of revenue, reducing essential care for patients, and affecting the livelihoods of health professionals. Our healthcare strategists, planners and designers convened to explore a framework for designing ambulatory care to remain open, operable and safe during future epidemic or pandemic events. These strategies serve as a launching point for examining this vital component of healthcare delivery.
RAPID RESPONSE TEAM
Access Our Team of Experts on Design’s Role in Pandemic Solutions
SmithGroup's Rapid Response Team is a group of design professionals who have developed specific expertise in COVID-related design interventions. These experts are available to advise and assist public officials, healthcare providers, facility managers, and other allied consultants in issues of surge capacity, isolation, and infection prevention and control as well as staff and patient flow and safety, facility conversions, alternative care sites, and material flow and logistics. Our experts have already assisted numerous clients with design solutions and technological expertise during the immediate crisis and continue to study the long-term impacts and lessons learned to realign healthcare facilities for the post-COVID future.
RESOURCES
Learning from COVID-19: Now is the Time to Rethink Healthcare Delivery
As we prepare for recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, SmithGroup is formulating solutions to address the infection control concerns that patients and staff are bound to have as we return to "normal." But will the healthcare setting return to normal, or reset to something new?
Climate-Informed HVAC Increases in Relative Humidity May Fight Pandemic Viruses
Recent climate visualization research identified that by adjusting indoor Relative Humidity, viral infection rates and recovery could be improved. This report details steps that facilities managers at hospitals and alternate medical care sites should consider, as well as proposed longer-term changes to building design to allow for ideal Relative Humidity levels.
Maintaining the Humanity in Healthcare after COVID-19
The necessary physical distancing and infection control protocols in the treatment of COVID-19 have had devastating impact for caregivers, patients and their families. For every restriction there's a story of human resiliency and the heroism of healthcare workers. Still, for healthcare designers, it is hard not to feel the patient and family experience we’ve dedicated our careers to improving has now been compromised.
Lessons in Resilience: A New Safety-Focused Bed Tower Adapts to the Pandemic
The new Ocean View Tower opened a few days after the World Health Organization issued an alert that a new coronavirus had appeared in China. Christine Basiliere and Matt Teichner of Sharp HealthCare share their approach to adapting the Chula Vista Medical Campus to the pandemic, and share lessons from the experience that may influence the future design of healthcare environments.
Future Pandemic Preparedness at the Medical District Scale
The key to developing greater resilience to disruptive events like pandemics, natural disasters and more, may be reconsidering inter-institutional planning at the medical district scale.
COVID-19 Real Estate Recovery Strategy: Accelerating Translational Medicine through Turnkey Development
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on our everyday lives, affecting every industry and market sector in some way. The healthcare and life science sectors have been impacted substantially, as healthcare workers concentrate on caring for the sick and researchers focus on studying this new pathogen, testing effective treatments, and developing a vaccine. These sectors have always been interconnected. Research drives the future of care, and emerging care needs drive directions for future research and drug development.
How Design of Senior Living Communities Must Change after COVID-19
The operational and economic impacts of COVID-19 on senior living communities have been well-covered by news media, but far less has been mentioned about the negative social and emotional impacts resulting from the necessary isolation of older adults. The design of communities for seniors must adapt to keep residents and staff safe from viral threats while enabling quality of life and care.
Design Strategies Health Systems Should Consider After COVID-19
We continue to research how COVID-19 has affected our health clients as the pandemic has evolved, resulting in a collection of design strategy considerations we recommend health systems consider after the crisis has subsided.
WEBINARS
HAIO: Webinar - Designing for Flexibility in Uncertain Times
The Healthcare Associated Infections Organization (HAIO) in New England convened their member health systems to reflect upon their experiences adapting during the surge conditions of the pandemic. SmithGroup health studio leader Andrew Brumbach joined the panel to forecast how systems should design for greater flexibility to better enable them to react during future surge conditions.
NeoConnect Healthcare Facilities Post-Pandemic Programming and Design
As COVID-19 spread, healthcare organizations rapidly adapted to the crisis. Healthcare architects, engineers and contractors jumped in to assist, planning alternate care sites, testing sites and more. NeoCon presents a virtual panel discussion with leading healthcare designers including healthcare interior designer Alison Faecher to discuss the lessons we’re continuing to learn from the pandemic, and how programming and design may change in the future.
Metropolis Forums: Webinar - Learning from Healthcare from Metropolis Magazine
Healthcare providers have been under extreme stress since the coronavirus first appeared in the United States. Editor in Chief of Metropolis Magazine Avinash Rajagopal leads a panel discussion of healthcare design specialists, including healthcare studio leader Cindy Beckham, on how COVID-19 is impacting health systems, and how it may impact design of future healthcare environments.