Healthcare Architecture Firms, Simone Health, Discusses 4 Factors to Keep in Mind When Designing an Emergency Department

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Nov 15, 2019, 05:00 ET

BRONX, N.Y., Nov. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The emergency department of a healthcare facility receives some of the highest patient traffic flow as compared to the rest of a medical building. While an emergency department can be a key entryway and a patient's first contact with a medical facility, they're also a constant source of low patient satisfaction, with high crowding and high waiting times pushing potentially happy patients into a dissatisfying experience. Healthcare architecture firm, Simone Health, has developed an extensive amount of emergency departments, giving them the expertise to know how to provide the best patient experience and avoid common pitfalls. Below, healthcare architecture firms, Simone Health discusses 4 major factors to keep in mind during the design process for a successful emergency department.

Patient & Visitor Volume: One of the biggest factors affecting a patient's first impression of an emergency department is the amount of people in the waiting room. If there's an overflow of people, crowding around different areas of the waiting room, patients often grow anxious this indicates a long wait ahead. Paying attention to patient and visitor volume and how it can grow over time is a key point to keep in mind when designing an ED. You must design an ED able to accommodate your current expected flow of patients and visitors, as well as potential growth, especially during unpredictable intense waves of patient demand.

Workflow Efficiency: Another major factor to consider is the employee experience. Organized, well-laid out employee processes directly translate into better patient experiences, so it is the next biggest focus after patient volume. Utilizing data-driven conclusions, organize staffing needs according to the highest efficiency, along with assessing the effectiveness of the physical ED space's layout are all important. Ask employees directly: what could improve to change the patient experience in a positive way? You might be surprised how much they pay attention to their own work-flow efficiency and the guidance they can give to creating better emergency room experiences.

Standardization: A significant way to improve any ED is through standardization. This can mean standardizing work stations, like making where tools and devices are stored the same in every patient care area, as well as providing standard, partitioned beds to utilize valuable space without permanent, and inflexible, walls. Standardizing processes will make for a generally positive patient experience, as staff will be able to attend to patients efficiently, lowering treatment times. Standardization can also be done for the bedside charting and patient procedures to further simplify the process and provide better, straightforward care to patients.

Patient Needs: Clearly, one of your emergency department's main concerns should be ever-changing patient needs. Taking the increasing number of ED patients with mental health concerns for example; if an ED department is not equipped with the right tools and staff to accommodate the increase in the number of patients coming in for these kinds of medical emergencies, then the patient experience will suffer. This rings true for any health issue coming in the ED that will go through demand fluctuations. To combat this, make sure you're analyzing trends in patient data to recognize a potential increase and allocate staff and resources there as needed.

Designing an effective emergency department is a key factor for increasing your overall patient satisfaction. Keeping the considerations above in mind while you design will make your ED run smoother and faster in the long-run, and may help increase both employee and patient satisfaction in their emergency department experience in your healthcare facility.

About Simone Health Development Companies:
Simone Health Development Companies is a full-service real estate investment company specializing in the acquisition and development of office, retail, industrial and healthcare properties in the New York tristate area. Headquartered in the Bronx, the privately held company owns and manages more than 5 million square feet of property in the Bronx, Westchester County, Queens, Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. The company's portfolio includes more than 100 properties and ranges from multi-building office parks to retail and industrial space. The largest and most successful development from Simone Health is the 42-acre Hutchinson Metro Center office complex located directly off the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx. The first two phases of the complex, which comprise nearly 750,000 square feet of Class A office and medical space, are fully leased. Two additional phases totaling 650,000 square feet (370,000-square-foot Metro Center Atrium and 280,000-square-foot Tower Two), are completed and fully leased. Visit www.simdev.com.