Healthcare furniture plays a crucial role in both patient care and the comfort of the healthcare team. While caregivers’ focus is on the patients’ health, healthcare facility managers need to focus on the well-being of the healthcare team. Healthcare design can improve work environments for caregivers, which ultimately benefits the healthcare facility as a whole.
Healthcare Design Upgrades & Trends
Prioritizing the needs of caregivers allows facilities to avoid quick staff turnovers by improving morale, especially during staffing shortages, improving the efficiency of care, and providing better patient care.
In a healthcare environment, there are upgrades that have been proven to improve the overall well-being of caregivers.
Ergonomic Furniture
Promote alertness and reduce the physical strain on caregivers with furniture designed with comfort and productivity in mind. Ergonomic workspaces have been a trend in office environments, but the benefits extend to healthcare environments as well. Flexible workstations allow for easy collaboration and added comfort.
Private Rest Areas
Incorporating private rest areas into a healthcare facility is a necessary step when conducting space planning for hospitals. Examples of these designated spaces can include a physician’s lounge, break room, or even on-call rooms. These rest areas give caregivers a location that is a place they can destress away from patients and families.
A study published by the National Institute of Health identified that healthcare staff were more likely to take breaks if it offered three features
- Close in proximity to their main work locations
- Offered complete privacy from patients and family
- Included opportunities for individual privacy and coworker socialization
This same study found that improvements to the restorative quality of their rest areas may significantly improve nurse’s satisfaction, stress reduction, and patient care.
Functional Workspaces
Functional workspaces allow for improved efficiency and care. It may be tempting to store all of one thing in a single location, but this requires caregivers to leave the room to collect supplies from each storage location. Instead, each room in a healthcare facility has a designated purpose, allowing space planners to anticipate the tools and resources caregivers will need when providing care in each room. This extra convenience improves efficiency and quality of care.
Biophilic Designs
The move towards using biophilic design strives to connect people and nature. This can look like the addition of living plants and greenery, natural decor, and larger windows. This design trend takes a holistic approach to well-being and effective healing environments
While healthcare environments need to be sterile, that doesn’t mean they need to exude coldness. Healthcare spaces have chosen to carefully incorporate biophilic features into their spaces to improve psychological well-being and engagement.
King Business Interiors was consulted on a project with Arc Industries, a day facility for adults with developmental disabilities looking to reimagine a vacant call center. Using biophilic design as inspiration, our team incorporated large windows and greenery to breathe life into the space. With an overarching goal to create a facility that centered on health and wellness, we prioritized creating flexible spaces to create a universal and accessible setting for everyone.
Enhance Your Healthcare Environment
Refresh your environment and your caregivers with a facility redesign. Our team at King offers healthcare space management services, allowing us to implement solutions that incorporate modern solutions. Get in touch with us to get started!
Request an Appointment
"*" indicates required fields
