Decentralized Nurse Stations: A Methodology for Using Research to Guide Design Decisions

The purpose of this methodology is to define a process for facility planning teams to use to ensure research findings are used to guide decision making in the design process.

Over the past decade and a half, research in health facility design has developed and the body of knowledge has grown significantly, but at the same time, the process for incorporating these findings into the design process has been less defined. This methodology evolved out of the desire to develop a structured process to integrate recent research findings into the planning and programming process at the user group and planning team level.

This two-phase methodology consists of, first, reviewing recent, relevant research on the topic, classifying the findings into positive and negative attributes and, then, summarizing the attributes by category on a summary table and in a brief narrative. The second phase consists of reviewing the research to identify operational and facility strategies that can be used to mitigate the inconsistent and negative attributes identified.

In the case study, as a result of this process, one inconsistent attribute and three negative attributes were identified. In the second phase, potential research-based operational and facility strategies were identified to mitigate the inconsistent and negative attributes identified. This information served as the basis for making design decisions.

This methodology presents an organized, efficient process for organizing and providing relevant research findings to a facility planning team to use in evaluating a new healthcare design concept and making research-based design decisions.