The Creative Healthcare Architect

The objectives of the research described in this article focus on an understanding of factors that influence creativity in healthcare design. Two areas of emphasis include the personality strengths of successful healthcare architects and elements of the current project delivery process. As part of the research, 48 healthcare architects participated in a battery of personality and creativity tests including Myers/Briggs, The Big Five, the Remote Associates Test (RAT), and an architectural creativity test. Results of the test point to strong "openness" for new ideas, particularly with the designers sampled. As a group, respondents scored low in "narcistic" bias (indicating emotional stability) and did not score high in verbal creativity. Compared to earlier studies of creative architects, the sample group included significantly fewer "perceiver" (Myers/Briggs), associated with a high level of curiosity. A second interesting finding was a significant difference between younger and older architects in the architectural creativity test. One possible hypothesis is the experience of the older architects. A second, and potentially more alarming, hypothesis is that technological disruptions are interfering with the ability to stimulate divergent thinking, particularly in the younger generation raised with smart phones and other network tools. Creativity in healthcare architecture demonstrates the case for domain-specific experience and skills along with creative input from other knowledge domains. The ability to establish group creativity may be inhibited by pressures to condense project time lines and not fully implement lean and other process strategies for exploring alternative solutions. Effective participation in group creativity tasks is particularly important for the complex world of healthcare design.