Category Archive

Evidence-Based Service Design From Chapter5, Design for Care Inpatients spend most of their time during hospital treatment and recovery in a bed, often in a shared room. It might be obvious to anyone who has even visited a hospital room that the experience of resting and waiting in this sterile, artificial environment could be greatly improved. The everyday experience of the inpatient constitutes encounters with the physical environment—from building architecture to room layout and furniture—and the presentation of services within a hospital and specialized clinics. Most of these environments leave a lot to be desired, and designed. What if it could be proven that people heal demonstrably faster and better in beautiful, well cared for physical environments? Architecture professor Roger Ulrich’s research into the direct beneficial health effects of natural and harmonious surroundings during care provides hard evidence to support this theory. Ulrich’s 1983 article “View Through a Window May …