Building a Covid-19 secure intensive care unit: A human-centred design approach

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Design
• Critical Care Medicine
• Human Factors Engineering

Background:

• COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical care capacity and infrastructure weaknesses in the National Health Service.
• Traditional healthcare workspaces often neglect Human-Centred Design (HCD), impacting task completion, patient safety, and staff well-being.
• Urgent need for COVID-19 secure critical care facilities designed around user requirements and safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a pandemic-resilient critical care facility using Human-Centred Design (HCD) principles.
• To prioritize staff and patient needs and safety within existing spatial constraints.
• To develop a replicable methodology for evaluating and improving healthcare facility designs.

Main Methods:

• A simulation exercise was developed, integrating HCD principles.
• Build Mapping (taping out designs, using mock equipment) and Task Analysis were employed.
• Qualitative data collection followed task completion within the simulated environment.

Main Results:

• 56 participants generated 141 design suggestions, leading to 18 multilevel improvements.
• Five significant structural (Macro-level) changes were implemented, alongside Meso- and Micro-level enhancements.
• Key design drivers included functional aspects (visibility, infection control, workflow) and behavioral aspects (learning, lighting, humanizing the environment).

Conclusions:

• Clinical environments significantly influence task success, infection control, patient safety, and well-being.
• Focusing on user requirements demonstrably improved clinical design.
• A replicable simulation approach effectively identified substantial design improvements before construction.