Integrating healthcare design research into practice: setting a new standard of practice

It seems safe to conclude that nearly 150 years ago, "the lady with the lamp," Florence Nightingale, set a course that practice-based healthcare researchers continue to follow today. In her book, Notes on Nursing (1860), Nightingale identified light, ventilation, noise, and sanitation as elements of the environment that affected the well-being of soldiers in her care. Today, we attempt to study these same relationships: those that exist between the built environment of healthcare settings, and the health and well-being of the users of these spaces. The goal of this paper is to describe how research is conceptualized, integrated, and utilized in healthcare design decision making and to address the challenges and opportunities that exist when moving a research agenda forward. Numerous examples of design practitioners and healthcare facilities that have committed themselves to integrating research into healthcare design are provided.