Key design considerations for designing the smart patient room - IMEG (2024)

Image from ‘A Peek into the Hospital of the Future‘ by Dr. Bertalan Mesko and Dr. Diana Anderson, published by The Medical Futurist. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
By Corey Gaarde

Most of us have fully integrated technology into our lifestyles with smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, and AI home devices like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home. Unfortunately, such technology isn’t often adapted to the patient and caregiver experience.

The complete patient experience encompasses the journey to the hospital, the care experience, and the trip back home. All these touchpoints come with an expectation and must be considered when designing a hospital’s smart patient experience. The caregiver experience, the building and its systems, floors/units/departments, and more are part of the experience as well. This blog, however, focuses on the smart patient room. 

The technology to connect patients and family members to their caregivers is already here, but with so many options, it can be difficult for a hospital to decide what its smart patient room strategy should include. However, the first and most important step in creating a smart patient room is defining the vision for the experience.Neither technology itselfnor a single vendorshould ever be the driver of the vision. Rather, technologies should be chosen to enablethevision.

Creating a vision and framework for implementing smart patient rooms is best accomplished by assembling a multi-disciplinary team to build the strategy and discuss use cases aligned to outcomes.  Following are several key suggestions to guide the conversation.

• Focus on tools and technology that improve caregivers’efficiencytohelpavoid burnout rather than adding to their workload. Providers, nurses, and support staff are much more likely to adopt new technologies if they are smoothly integrated into their workflow and processes. Tools such as the digital whiteboard and digital signage outside rooms integrated to the EMR can update real-time patient precautions and key information. General patient information–such asa pediatric patient’sfavorite Marvel character–can greatly improvetheirexperience.Other technologiesthat can ease the burden on your hospital staffincludesmarter nurse/patient server; integrated medical devices (wired or wireless); ambient clinical intelligence using voice dictation directly into the EMR; smartpatient beds for continuous heart rate and respiratory monitoring; automatic supply replenishment based on weight (such as PPE); and even robots that deliver food or medications.
• Let the patient control their environment from their bed. Bedside tablets like an iPad, BYOD, and voice-controlled devices like Alexa can make a room safer for patients by controlling the frequency of unaccompanied bed exits, thus preventing falls and injuries. Simple things like enabling patients to control their lights, shades, androomtemperature help make a patient feel like it is “their room.” Other technologies like multi-use cameras can be accessed bedside for telemedicine use, provideeICU/Acute Care, function as a tele-sitter, and allow for patient/family interactions.Entertainment and education solutions that are integrated to the EMR and dietary for ordering food,orevenasimplerelaxation channelon the TV,alsocaneasepatients’minds.
• Select systems and infrastructure mindfully. The building and its systemscan be detrimental to patient and caregiver comfort if not carefully designed. Acousticaldesignconsiderations of theroom and floor are critically important for patient satisfaction, and now even regulated in some jurisdictions. Proper acoustics also impacts privacy and the abilitytosuccessfully usevoice controls. Lighting can be conducive to a positive patient experience as well,assisting with wayfinding,providingnight lighting for bathrooms,scene-based lighting for sensory distraction, and evenintelligent lighting thatsupportscircadian rhythms.Lightingalso can betied to codes, staff, and assets to helpinformcaregivers,andoccupancy sensorscanadjust lighting to conserve energy whenaroom is not in use.
• Get creative with technology. No matter what outcome is desired, technology can help youachieve itin creative ways.Examplesinclude using intelligentreal-timedisplays for patient monitoring, data aggregation, and alarmsto support collaborative careandprovide information to thepatient and family; artificial intelligence for proactive patient monitoring and alerting;virtual, augmented, or mixed reality devices for education or therapy; screen mirroring and sharing (such as Apple TV) to allow caregiversto share pertinentinformation such as PACS images; digital art that changes for each season and leveraged for therapy; RTLS for situationssuch ascaregiver presence and hand hygiene compliance; and air quality monitoring devices for building operationsmanagement. 

In considering these suggestions, however, be cautious to notover-engineerthespace.YourHIT advisors, technology engineers, andmedicalequipmentplannersshould workwith the entire design teamto find the balance between a facility’swants and needs to giveyou thebest value foryour investment while also allowing for future options.

The key thing to remember is to notaddtechnologyjustbecause you can;itmustbe purposefulandtied to a workflowandtarget outcomes.Above all it must supportthe vision ofyoursmartpatient room. 

CoreyGaarde, FHIMSS, CPHIMS, is Project Executive for IMEG’s Medical Equipment and Healthcare Technology Planning Team and an associate principal of the firm. Corey specializes in aligning healthcare information technology to the collaborative design process.

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