Jiyoung An (Visiting Professor/Project Coordinator, Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii)

This presentation will address why healthcare design considers behavioral health within its scope. For this purpose, two examples will be briefly introduced.

First, we will talk about a project exemplar, titled “Designing For The Patient Experience.” Patients’ healthcare experiences are largely driven by their clinical outcomes, their interactions with staff, and their perceptions of care. How and when the physical environment improves the patient experience is one of the hardest things to quantify. This project was originally published to Healthcare Design in 2014.

Second, the Master of Health Care Design (MHCD) program at Kent State University in Ohio will be introduced. The MHCD is currently the only post-professional Masters in Health Care Design program in the country. This program is designed to orient students to the special needs of patients in health care settings and to provide the tools to research the requirements for various health care facilities in order to develop design solutions to provide for efficient, cost-effective operation of facilities and to create living and working spaces that will support patient wellness through varying phases of independence and cognition.

Healthcare design not only prepares professionals to function in offices that specialize in design for the health care sector, but also provides professionals the potential to serve as client representatives, or related positions, in the health care industry. To do this, fundamental works in academia will have to provide students with the context and theory behind healthcare design such as behavioral science, health science, ethical and cultural issues all together in health care, and evidence based design.