Except: Hospital-based intensivist administrators at some point in their careers may be asked to participate in designing new or renovating existing ICUs. For simplicity of presentation we have divided this chapter into five sections; the ICU design process, the ICU patient room, central clinical, visitor and staff support and administrative areas, ICU informatics, and future trends. While we classify these areas separately, they are indeed heavily interrelated.

Healthcare and design are actually very complex processes that must accommodate and address continuously evolving guidelines and regulatory standards. Several core principles should guide ICU-specific design.

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Except: The design of an intensive care unit (ICU) is a complex process and requires a multidisciplinary group of professionals. In 2010, there were approximately 6,100 ICUs with over 104,000 beds in the 3,100 acute care hospitals in the United States. ICU design itself is continuously evolving as new guidelines and regulatory standards are developed, clinical models are changing, and medical technologies are advancing. It is highly probable that hospital-based intensivist leaders will be asked at some point in their careers to participate in efforts to design new ICUs or renovate existing ones. This chapter provides an overview to a wide array of design issues and is divided into three sections: an overview of ICU design, confi guring the ICU space, and future trends in ICU design.

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Key Points

• ICU-specific design is a complex process and requires a multidisciplinary team which includes both clinical and expert design-based professionals.
• The layout of an ICU is arguably the most important design feature affecting all aspects of critical care services.
• The core of the ICU experience is the patient room, conceptually subdivided into patient, caregiver and family/visitor zones.
• Central clinical support zones within the ICU act to bind the patient rooms and other supportive areas together, with the overall goal of supporting bedside care.
• Deploying advanced informatics into the modern ICU electronically integrates the patient with all aspects of care.

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