Healthcare Design - October 2016 - 72

The

Center

TA K I N G N E W S H A P E
A recent exercise identified the top drivers for
change in the healthcare design industry
By Debra Levin

Health Design recently created a
training presentation for one of our industry partners to use in helping to educate its sales teams on the
forces currently affecting healthcare design, focusing
on 10 key trends we're seeing and why it's important
to pay attention to them. After all, one of the best ways
to relate to your clients is to understand what's keeping
them up at night. In the healthcare community, the list
is not a short one and ranges from balancing spending on the latest technology to providing access to care for all.
Adding complexity to the milieu is the fact that this is an election year and
healthcare's future is unclear. The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 set many changes in motion. And while some parts
of the industry may be settling down, a shift in the political landscape could
affect the healthcare landscape yet again.
One of the most significant trends influencing our industry today is pressure on the market to consolidate. Many independent hospitals and physicians' practices are being bought up or merged into larger healthcare
systems. This leads to a marketplace that will be
represented by just a few key players with great
MARKET CONSOLIDATION
power to move the industry, with an unknown
MEANS GREAT POWER
downstream impact on the built environment.
We've already seen the movement from a focus
FOR A FEW PLAYERS, WITH
on acute care settings to outpatient and ambuAN UNKNOWN IMPACT
latory care spaces. And moving forward, techON FUTURE BUILDING.
nology and a generation more accustomed to
interaction through social media and mobile
devices than in-person visits are likely to inspire more care being delivered
virutally-and less of a need for traditional healthcare buildings.
Given all of these competing pressures, the 10 trends we identified that
are shaping our industry today and into the future include:
HE CENTER FOR

* Quality, safety, and satisfaction. The spotlight on safety began more than
15 years ago when the Institute of Medicine published the report "Crossing the Quality Chasm," revealing that close to 100,000 people died in
healthcare institutions each year because of adverse events. That scrutiny has only intensified in recent years as that number continues to
grow. In addition to quality and safety, patient experience and patient
satisfaction are carrying more weight, leading to the creation of websites
like Hospital Compare (www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare). These
sites track indicators directly linked to the built environment, such as
how quiet it was around the patient room at night or if patients perceived

OCTOBER 2016

their rooms as always clean, and allows consumers to make more informed choices based
on ratings. Collectively, these are key drivers of
change in our industry, and the built environment offers a variety of solutions to positively
influence these outcomes and indicators.
* Healthcare costs and reimbursements. Creating a culture of accountability has resulted
in a new care delivery model being created.
Healthcare today is focusing more and more
on the overall health of a population of patients rather than the volume of patients seen
on a given day. More care is shifting to the
ambulatory and outpatient setting as a way to
reduce cost, and new incentives to accountability are in place by way of reimbursements.
With the United States ranking last in overall
healthcare quality but first in total expenditures among 11 developed nations studied by
the Commonwealth Fund, understanding how
the built environment can be leveraged to improve outcomes while reducing the cost of care
becomes an important part of the solution.
* Environmental safety and sustainability. The
connection between the health of our environment and our individual health is becoming
increasingly apparent. Despite its mission to
improve the quality of health for individuals,
healthcare as an industry has a negative impact on global health. It's the second largest
commercial energy user and the third highest
water user, and it uses hazardous chemicals
on a regular basis. Greater attention is now
being given to understanding the makeup of
the building products specified for healthcare
facilities, and in making that information easy
to find for healthcare and design professionals.
Change in any industry is inevitable. In ours, it
seems to not only be ever-present but a moving
target, as well, making it difficult to confidently
make decisions that have far-reaching and longstanding consequences. Keeping pace with the
drivers that will influence both healthcare and
design is the best insurance policy one can take
out. Visit my blog at HCDmagazine.com to read
about the additional trends that we see shaping
the industry's next five years. 
Debra Levin is president and CEO of The Center
for Health Design. She can be reached at D L E V I N @
H E A LT H D E S I G N . O R G .

HCDMAGAZINE.COM

http://www.HCDmagazine.com http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare http://www.HCDMAGAZINE.COM

Healthcare Design - October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Design - October 2016