Designing for Patient Safety and Efficiency: Simulation-Based Hospital Design Testing

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Facility Design
• Patient Safety Engineering
• Simulation Modeling

Background:

• Mitigating preconstruction risk is crucial in healthcare facility design.
• Simulation-based Hospital Design Testing (SbHDT) uses full-scale mock-ups to test human-environment interactions.
• Proactive risk assessment enhances safety in new hospital constructions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the SbHDT process for evaluating hospital designs.
• To demonstrate how SbHDT identifies and mitigates safety concerns during facility design.
• To assess the effectiveness of SbHDT in a new freestanding children's hospital.

Main Methods:

• Prospective investigation of SbHDT during the schematic design phase.
• Frontline staff simulated care episodes in a cardboard mock-up of 11 clinical areas.
• Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) prioritized findings; design changes were validated in a second testing round.

Main Results:

• A statistically significant reduction in criticality scores from Round 1 (median=16.14) to Round 2 (median=7.68) was observed (p < .001).
• Bivariate analysis confirmed a significant decrease in very high/high criticality scores after design modifications.
• SbHDT successfully identified latent design-related conditions.

Conclusions:

• SbHDT in the schematic design phase is effective for risk mitigation.
• The process proactively identifies latent conditions and validates design improvements.
• SbHDT enhances patient safety by refining hospital designs before construction.