Medscape: These MD Architects Want to Redesign Your Hospital

In her now well-known writings on nursing, Nightingale advocated for “open windows to maximize light and ventilation,” among other elements. Today, a growing group of physician-designers are paying attention to many such details — windows in patient rooms included. Their goal: To build hospitals and medical facilities where design can enhance patient and clinician well-being.

These doctors support their push for enhanced design with research. A 2010 study, “Relationship between ICU design and mortality,” for instance, found disparity among critical care patients based on their assigned rooms. Patients in rooms that were less visible from the nurse’s station — such as in a far corner — had significantly higher hospital mortality than did similarly ill patients admitted to rooms within view.

A 2017 assessment of 12 childbirth facilities found that design had an impact on C-section rates. Longer distances between labor and delivery rooms, and between those rooms and workstations or call rooms, were associated with higher rates of cesarean deliveries.

A 2023 review of research also looked at the role of design in patient outcomes at long-term residential facilities. The findings suggested that nature and landscape can play a therapeutic role when designing such places of care.

The growing marriage between medicine and design has launched nonprofits like the Center for Health Design (CHD), which advocates for “healthcare facilities that promote healthier environments for patients and staff.” The vision has become a movement, the CHD said, leading its community of architects, interior designers, healthcare professionals, and others to push the envelope for improved healthcare design.

There’s also the Clinicians for Design group, which researches, advocates, and designs with the interaction of “brains, minds, bodies, and buildings” in mind. And a third group, the American College of Healthcare Architects, provides its own board certification for architects who specialize in healthcare design.

These groups firmly believe that the future of healthcare stands to benefit greatly from the convergence of design and medicine.