One of the most important things you need to consider when building a hospital is ensuring that it is a safe and welcoming place for patients. No matter what age you are, having to go to the hospital for a medical issue is pretty scary. It would benefit everyone if you took the extra steps to make your hospital comfortable and welcoming. Ensuring that patients feel safe and comfortable when they have to go to the hospital should be everyone's priority. If the environment is hostile, it will only create more anxiety for both patients and staff. Happy staff equals well-cared-for patients, so you will be massively improving patient care if you take the time to focus on improving the hospital environment.
In this article, we will go over five tips that will help you create a safer and more welcoming hospital. If you are in the healthcare construction industry or you are planning to work for a newly built hospital, then hopefully, this article can give you a bit of guidance and support. Keep on reading to find out our top tips.
Consider How The Environment Can Be Healing
When it comes to building a hospital, you have to consider how the environment can impact patients’ healing. Being in an unclean, messy, or stressful environment can be a real detriment to how patients heal, and it can actually interrupt the healing process altogether. When someone has gone through a physically traumatic experience, they need to be in a calm environment if they are to heal properly.
One thing you can do to create a calming and relaxing environment is to paint the rooms with calming colors. People often associate hospitals with the clinical white paint they see on the walls, which is not always conducive to healing and relaxation. Of course, you don’t want to go ahead and start painting crazy patterns on the walls, but consider opting for a color that isn’t just clinical white. Sage green, lilac, and baby blue are all known to be very calming for people, so they would be a good option to use for your hospital.
Invest In Smart Technology
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Another thing you can do to make the hospital feel safer and more welcoming is to invest in smart technology. During the actual construction process, you must be doing what you can to ensure that the building is safe and secure. This means hiring the right team of people to design the structure of the hospital and build it so that it will last for years to come.
One thing you can do to help you during the construction process is to invest in smart technology. You may not think that construction and technology cross over, but you would be mistaken. Technology is a huge part of every industry, including healthcare construction, so it would be beneficial to invest in technology that can help you build a safe and welcoming hospital. Kahua have project management software that is ideal for someone in the healthcare construction industry as it allows you to have better control over the project. Hospital construction software makes it easy for you to manage funding and minimize risks during construction. Technology is here for us to use, so why not make the most of it?
Listen To Patients
When it comes to providing excellent patient care, it is so important that you actually listen to your patients. Often in hospitals, patients are ignored, or their concerns are dismissed, which only leads to unhappy and uncared for patients. If you want your hospital to be safe and welcoming, then you must always remember to listen to patient feedback. If they have a concern about their treatment, then take the time to sit down with them and understand where they are coming from. Often, people in hospital are just scared and alone, so they just need someone to listen to them.
It could be a good idea to set up some kind of suggestion or feedback system in your hospital so that all of the complaints or queries are all in one place. You could have a physical suggestion box, or you could have an automated email that gets sent out to patients where they can fill in an online form. Having something like this will just make it easier for you to hear the patient’s concerns, and it means you can provide better care for everyone.
Create A Relaxing Staff Room
While it is important to create a welcoming environment for your patients, you must also ensure that there is a comfortable space for staff to relax. Having a proper breakroom is important within any type of career, but perhaps it is even more important in a hospital setting. Within a hospital, doctors and nurses work long and stressful hours, so they need to have a proper place to relax and recharge throughout the day.
When building a hospital, it is essential that you spend time creating a relaxing staff room. Invest in some comfortable furniture and even consider adding some couches in the breakroom too, so that anyone can have a quick power nap before they go back to work. If you want your patients to be safe and properly cared for, then you must ensure that your staff are well-rested. Take the time to create a comfortable and relaxing staff room and give your staff the space they need to recharge after a busy shift.
Design A Welcoming Reception
When someone has to go to a hospital, one of the first things they are confronted with is the reception area. As mentioned throughout this article, having to go to a hospital can be incredibly scary, and the last thing you want is to have to sit in a dark and dingy waiting area. Therefore, when you are building your hospital, you should ensure that you focus on creating a welcoming reception. Invest in modern, comfortable furniture, and ensure that reception staff have all the tools they need to do their job.
It would be best to have a large reception area, as this will mean multiple patients can be seen at once. Hospitals are often busy places, so you want to ensure that no one is waiting too long to be seen. Again, consider the colors you use to paint the reception and use warm, calming colors that will help put everyone at ease. Additionally, you could invest in some TVs and mount them on the wall, so people at least have something to keep them entertained while they are waiting.
Summary
Within a hospital environment, it is so important that you take the time to create a safe and welcoming space. No one wants to end up in a hospital, but if they do, they should be able to feel safe and well-looked-after. Spending time designing a hospital that is patient-centered will allow you to provide the best medical care possible. Consider what aspects you would like to see within a hospital, and make sure you implement those points when building your own hospital. It is so important that patients feel listened to and valued, so by creating a welcoming environment, you will be ensuring that patients are always looked after.
