Privacy + Flexible Work Environments Central to Clinician Wellbeing
Steelcase Health Unveils New Healthcare Design Applications to Support Clinician Respite and Collaboration
Grand Rapids, MI – (June 9, 2014) – Steelcase Health, the newly-rebranded healthcare division of Steelcase, is deepening its commitment to places that support health, such as hospitals and health systems, with new design applications that enhance wellbeing and support the spatial privacy needs of clinicians and other care team members. With noise and privacy loss identified as primary causes of workspace dissatisfaction in general, healthcare organizations will need to leave behind the old, cluttered nurses’ station and embrace principles that place people at the center of design – to the benefit of clinicians and patients alike.
The new applications, which will be showcased for the first time at this year’s NeoCon conference, are designed to provide clinicians with places that offer quick respite areas as well as optimal work environments within clinical settings – including workspace for both privacy and collaboration – that support more efficient healthcare organizations.
“We conducted 18 studies with 15,000 hours of observational research to understand the challenges facing clinicians and patients. We found a startling lack of places that enable privacy, focus and collaboration for clinicians,” said Caroline Kelly, Senior Design Researcher at Steelcase Health. “With increasing expectations on clinicians around patient satisfaction, technology compliance, and team-based care, we need to design workspaces for them from a human-centered perspective.”
From reimagined clinicians’ hubs, otherwise known as nurses’ stations, to retreat areas and private telemedicine consultation spots, these spaces can help organizations empower and connect all members of the care continuum for clear benefits to each.
Supporting Clinician Workplace Needs.
In an era of physician shortages and increasing demands on clinical teams, improving clinician wellbeing and satisfaction in the workplace is essential for successful healthcare organizations to retain top talent. Overall wellbeing is an important predictor of presenteeism, intention to stay, and job performance.
By intentionally designing for the intersection of people, place and technology holistically in healthcare, the result can be an environment that empowers clinicians, connects them to technology, each other and other involved parties, and overall reduces stress.
Enhancing Patient Safety and Satisfaction.
Recent data shows that preventable adverse events, often simply referred to as medical errors, cause as many as 440,000 patient deaths a year in the United States, making it the third-leading cause of death. There is also a growing body of evidence that providing nurses with supportive workplaces and environments leads to a higher quality of nursing care and reduces medical errors.
Steelcase Health design applications allow clinicians to alternate between collaboration and focused individual work throughout their shift, giving them the right tools and levels of privacy for their work so that quality care can stay at the forefront.
Delivering Technology-Enhanced Hospital Innovation.
Hospitals and other healthcare providers are embracing technology at a rapid pace, yet their workspaces are rarely designed to support the privacy requirements for video consultations and telemedicine deployments. With telemedicine growing at a rate of almost 20% every year, and the increasing number of family caregivers who are remote and want to be involved in a loved one’s care from afar, creating space for clinicians to successfully use technology is paramount.
“Clinicians are the lynchpin of today’s healthcare system, and hospital leaders must start designing their spaces to support their privacy and wellbeing needs,” said Robert Heitmeier, General Manager of Steelcase Health. “Designing places for the human factor can help leading healthcare providers address high-priority issues including total cost management, revenue generation, health outcomes, and patient satisfaction, for the benefit of all.”
Steelcase Health’s new applications will debut at showroom 3-100, NeoCon 2014, June 9 – 11, in Chicago and are now available to healthcare organizations throughout the United States, Canada and the Middle East. To learn more, please visit here.
About Steelcase Health
Steelcase Health studies the places that support health, and then delivers insights, applications and solutions to create moments that can lead to change – moments that support wellbeing, empathy, and connection between clinicians, patients and families. The group leverages a comprehensive portfolio of healthcare applications, furnishings, products and services designed to support more connected care. For more information on Steelcase Health please visit here.
About Steelcase
For over 100 years, Steelcase Inc. has helped to create great experiences – wherever work happens – for the world’s leading organizations, across industries. We demonstrate this through our family of brands – including Steelcase, Coalesse, Designtex, Details, PolyVision and Turnstone . Together, they offer a comprehensive portfolio of architecture, furniture and technology products and services designed to unlock human promise and support social, economic and environmental sustainability. We are globally accessible through a network of channels, including over 800 dealer locations. Steelcase is a global, industry-leading and publicly traded company with fiscal 2014 revenue of $3.0 billion.
Contact
Aideen Doherty, Steelcase (adoherty@steelcase.com)
Ashley Merchant, ReviveHealth (615.577.1137, alm@thinkrevivehealth.com)