Harm Hollander, a practising Australian architect who has driven the design and procurement teams of major hospital projects around Australia and internationally, Oystein Tronstad, Physiotherapy clinical lead at The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, and an experienced ICU clinician and researcher, and architect and clinical planner, Angelo Pagano, describe a research project undertaken at the Brisbane hospital which has looked to improve ICU bed bay environments through a variety of measures – from mitigating unwanted noise and incorporating distractive ceiling panels, to enhancing indoor air quality. The scheme was the subject of a post-occupancy evaluation.
Traditionally, the luxury of using a blank canvas is not linked to the usual, actual available site, especially when considering retrofit solutions. Many innovative design nominations, since at least the 1990s, tend to assume a new open floor area, free of the physical constraints that hinder implementation of blue-sky ideas, often also within existing departmental boundaries.1 New and unconstrained planning tends to lead to larger bed pods and additional auxiliary adjacent spatial requisites. The latter approach may be suitable for greenfield developments, but does not address:
The ICU of the Future Project at The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH), Brisbane, Australia had lofty aims.B However, the applied solution required a design within the tight constraints of an existing pair of old-style internal, windowless, and curtained bed bays. Consequently, the success of the design was ultimately evaluated against whether this compact design was replicable across many global contexts — limited by the local settings of existing departmental boundaries. This article reports on the outcomes of this research model, which was implemented at TPCH in December 2022 as a part of the operational ICU department.C The two upgraded bedspaces have been operating as part of the live department for more than two years since its launch, allowing the implemented solutions to be further tested by a review of the adjustments to operation by the clinical staff of the unit.
Every year, over 20 million people are admitted to an ICU globally.2 While the survival rate continues to improve, the quality of survival remains sub-optimal. As many as 70% of ICU patients will experience physical, cognitive, and/or psychological problems after their ICU admission.3 However, these problems do not only affect the patients; up to 75% of family members will also experience psychological symptoms after the ICU admission.4 These problems may be short-term, but commonly last for many years after hospital discharge.5 Therefore, the improved ICU survival rate has come with an increased burden for ICU survivors and their families.
Log in or register FREE to read the rest
This story is Premium Content and is only available to registered users. Please log in at the top of the page to view the full text.
If you don't already have an account, please register with us completely free of charge.
