Using Discrete Choice Methodology to Explore the Impact of Patient Room Window Design on Hospital Choice

Evidence-based design has been fundamental to designing healthcare environments for patient outcomes and experience, yet few studies have studied how design factors drive patient choice. 652 patients who recently received care at hospitals across the United States were administered an online discrete choice survey to investigate the factors playing into their choice between hypothetical hospitals. Discrete choice models are widely used to model patient preferences among treatment alternatives, but few studies have utilized this approach to investigate healthcare design alternatives. In the current study, respondents were asked to choose between hypothetical hospitals that differed in patient room design, window features of the room, appointment availability, distance from home, insurance coverage, and HCAHPS ratings. The results demonstrate that patient room design that allowed unobscured access to daylight and views through windows, in-network insurance coverage, closer distance from home, and one-star higher patient experience rating increased the likelihood of a patient's hospital choice. The study broadly explores discrete choice model's applicability to healthcare design and its ability to quantify patient perceptions with a metric meaningful for hospital administrators.