Design Your Patient Care Areas

When we build new medical facilities, our nurses have a voice in how patient care areas are designed

Nursing Architects

Patient care coordinator Cindy Meeker, R.N. (left), and Christina Kerchner, R.N., review the blueprints for a new 12-bed open-heart unit. Their construction suggestion result in a more efficient work environment, allowing nurses to spend more time at the bedside.

Inside Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg, we offer state-of-the-art cancer, heart and intensive care services, a diagnostic care center, specialty care for our community’s children, and so much more. But before the doors opened in the spring of 2005, our nurses were busy making sure every inch of the facility was designed perfectly.

At Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, we’re also expanding to meet the needs of our growing population. This investment in our community will include a new seven-story patient care building with private rooms, a larger emergency department, more operating rooms, an expanded Burn Center and more room for diagnostic equipment. But before construction crews drove the first nail, our nurses were busy drawing up plans for the most efficient work environment possible.

Creating the Blueprints

No one knows how to design a hospital room better than nurses. Nurses know where equipment needs to be located and where supplies need to be stored. They know how much workspace they need to be efficient and how much space a patient needs to be comfortable.

That’s why our nurses are encouraged to share ideas on ways to improve their physical work environment. When we’re planning an expansion project, our nursing directors take the ideas submitted by colleagues to the construction company. Many are implemented. For example, our nurses suggested that electrical outlets behind patient beds be relocated. Now, instead of having to reach behind the bed to plug something in, outlets are located on the side of the bed a few feet off the floor—providing easier access.

Here are some other design ideas from our nurses:

• Handheld shower heads
• Shelves for personal items
• A small work desk
• Drawers in patient rooms to store medications
• Cabinetry to hide medical equipment
• Higher toilets for patient comfort
• Decentralized nurses stations that put nurses closer to patients while decreasing the noise level
• Windows treatments to enhance the environment and add privacy

Mock Rooms

Even after the blueprints are finalized, we count on our nursing staff to achieve perfection. We construct mock rooms which look exactly like the real rooms that will be built in the hospital. All nurses are given the opportunity to tour these rooms and offer their opinion on ways to make them even better.

They evaluate the room’s layout—the clinical workspace, the space available to patients and visitors and the location of equipment and furniture. Even the color of the flooring, wall coverings and window treatments are critiqued. When tours are complete, designers take the suggestions and make changes to the blueprints before the real rooms are built.

The Finished Product

When all the suggestions come together, newly designed patient care areas are as efficient as possible. Added efficiency means you are able to spend more time doing what you do best, caring for patients. When you are given a voice in construction, we create the ideal work environment for colleagues and the ideal hospital experience for our patients and visitors.

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