Healthcare Design - January 2015 - 22

C THE CENTER | 02.15
Built environment resolutions

Mirroring commercial wellness trends, healthcare providers are entering 2015 focused on keeping
people well rather than treating illness, inspiring the design of spaces that promote good health
By Rosalyn Cama
The holiday season's gift catalogs were filled with
wearable devices that help build accountability
for physical activity, caloric intake, and weightloss goals. Many of these gadgets help users stay
motivated in the most common goal for the new
year-to be healthier.
As the trend for health and wellness likewise
grows for providers in this new era of risk-averse
affordable care, the industry is approaching a tipping point that requires discovery of new ways to
build health-oriented spaces. Like the growth in

Design's (The Center) Pebble Project participants do.
This is how traction is achieved for emerging trends;
once new ideas are proven, others will adopt them,
as well. If you're unclear about which design interventions impact health, consider using the resources
found in The Center's online Knowledge Repository
to develop a baseline. The appropriate hypotheses
will become evident to launch a solid research
agenda for desired outcomes. Also, make sure to
find and follow grant requests that are aligned with
your research agenda, as a lot of health and wellness

wellness-related gifts, requests for design services
that improve health outcomes will likely increase.
With that in mind, what follows are four New
Year's resolutions to help identify solutions for a
healthier built environment.
Create awareness around a baseline of knowledge. What design interventions hold the most
power to influence health and wellness? The
healthcare design community is poised to own this
conversation. Like our focus on safety in healthcare
some 15 years ago, we need a good analysis of the
literature to find the best design interventions that
are already in place today. We clearly understand
the importance of providing access to nature-or
when that can't be achieved, how to use appropriate art in its place; the significance of light and the
effects various exposures have on well-being; or
the negative effect that noise can have on healing.
These are just a few of the topics we can bring to
other design sectors.
Identify best practices. The trend to design for
health and wellness is growing at the fringes of
our clinical environments but is also moving into
developer-driven corporate and residential design.
In 2014, the International Well Building Institute and
the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI)
announced a collaboration to streamline how LEED
and Well work together, including GBCI providing
third-party certification for the Well Building Standard. Follow these projects and see where they're
making traction in improving life indoors. Using your
healthcare evidence-based design experience,
build upon this knowledge base to create a more
robust conversation at the design table.
Build a strong research agenda. Those who are
early adopters should share their research findings
with the field, much like The Center for Health

research is being funded right now.

HCDmagazine.com 02.15

The industry is approaching a tipping
point that requires discovery of new
ways to build health- and wellnessoriented spaces.
Build the business case. We've learned that design
interventions will be measured by a provider's C-suite
through careful financial analysis of first costs and
return on investment. The sooner we provide this
data, the sooner we'll be able to launch the innovation needed to create healthier environments. These
types of quantifiable reports will also help garner
media attention for work occurring in this field and
fuel demand, subsequently bolstering funding for
even more research.
Like previous innovations in healthcare design,
designing for health and wellness will require an
initiation period, but these four steps will allow you to
contribute knowhow to help shape a new healthcare
delivery system. This understanding of the impact
design has on health and wellness isn't simply a
trend but rather a shift in the maturation of our building sciences, and you're the experts who can provide
valuable insight on this topic. Here's to a happy and
healthy 2015! HCD
Rosalyn Cama, FASID, EDAC, is president and
principal interior designer of Cama Inc. (New Haven,
Conn.). She is the board of director chair for The
Center for Health Design. She can be reached at
rcama@camainc.com.

Rosalyn Cama

http://www.HCDmagazine.com

Healthcare Design - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Design - January 2015