Facility Planning - Principals of Design

Topic 2: Patient Centered or Provider Centered:

Here's a fun game to try sometime when you're wandering about any health care facility. Try to label each space as either provider centered or patient centered and write down the reason you make that evaluation.

Here are some examples from a recent walk-around.

Provider Centered:
Large waiting rooms with P.A. system to call patients back to provider office. Patient flow handled in efficient 'batch' mode.

Patient name, room assignment and attending physician/nurse posted on white board within nursing unit. Easily visible to all staff and visitors.

Main traffic corridor intermingles patients, family, staff and materials handling. Cluttered halls.

Patient Centered:
Waiting room designed in small cluster seating arrangements. Patient provided with silent pagers (e.g. restaurant type) to notify patient when provider is ready.

Patient information visible only to staff, protecting privacy and confidentiality.

Three segragated traffic flows. Front area of patients/family and visitors, back hall for staff/employees, lower level and dedicated vertical transport for materials handling.