Retrospective Preevaluation-Postevaluation in Health Design

Retrospective preevaluation-postevaluation (RPPEs) in health design is a methodology allowing designers and healthcare providers to evaluate the effectiveness of the enhancements to the care environment.

This article presents an overview of the nature of RPPE and addresses its usefulness in health design.

A description of the RPPE method with examples are provided to illustrate how these methods can be used to evaluate healthcare projects during and after the design and the implications to consider on patient, provider, and organizational outcomes.

The RPPE process can be very useful when evaluating health design. It is imperative for design and healthcare professionals to use the RPPE methods to gain factual knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes of how the built environment influences a respondent's life, health, and illness and be able to translate these findings into effective healthcare designs.