Event: Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, Organizational Ethics Consortium
Title: If Architecture Influences Health Outcomes, How Should Healthcare Systems Respond? Bioethics at the Frontier of the Science of Design
Date: January 20, 2023
To register for the event or for more information click HERE.
Event: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Ethics Grand Rounds
Title: Exploring the Untapped Nexus of Ethics and Health Facility Design
Date: January 10, 2023
Architecture inherently reflects the normative preferences of its time. This certainly applies to healthcare architecture, where design concepts have intentional and decades-long effects on patients, families, and staff. Employing healthcare architecture to alter behaviors, mediate interpersonal interactions, and affect patient outcomes make it an ethical matter. We propose that advances in design science and our understanding of its powerful effects warrant a shift how we think about space, and that the built environment in health care is analogous to a medical intervention. As such, all responsible stakeholders should openly discuss and thoroughly scrutinize the intentional use of the built environment to affect perceptions and change behaviors of patients, residents to a similar standard as conventional medical therapies. We highlight prominent examples of such architectural interventions, analyze their implementation, and offer perspective on how medicine and architecture can create ethically responsible spaces.
Read more about the ethical aspects of healthcare facility design HERE.
Event: Jewish Hospital Foundation’s 2021 Patient Safety Fellowship
Title: Ethics and Design in the Long-Term Care Setting
Date: July 20, 2021
The Jewish Healthcare Foundation’s 2021 Patient Safety Fellowship will offer a unique curriculum to explore the challenges and opportunities facing senior residential living and senior care. After the disruption of COVID-19, options for seniors must embrace creative solutions that help individuals age well and safely in a range of settings. Fellows, working across disciplines — including health care, public policy, public health, tech, architecture, and beyond — will explore existing and conceptional models for transforming our community and healthcare systems that maximize quality of life for seniors and families. New models of care need to be wired for safety, built for continuous improvement, and efficient for providers, seniors, and families.
As part of the 2021 fellowship program, Dr. Anderson lectured around design ethics in clinical and long-term care settings.
Lectures
Event: Tulane School of Medicine- Medical Student Government + GAPSA (Graduate Professional Student Association) lecture series
Title: Architectural Design as a Determinant of Health
Date: January 14, 2021
Lecture Overview
Our understanding of the role the environment plays in shaping health has expanded immensely over the last few decades. A growing body of empirical data and evidence-based design research demonstrates that architecture impacts care delivery as well as health outcomes. This talk explores built space as an important determinant of health and questions whether the built environment itself should be considered alongside other parameters of care, analogous to our medical interventions.
Historical examples of the convergence of hospital architecture and medical practice exist. The design of the tuberculosis sanatorium during the early 20th century illustrates this infrequent intersection; the healthy building emphasizing contact with nature, developed to prevent the spread of contagions by isolating patients and preparing them for a return to normal life. In the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic, we can revisit the sanatorium model to de-medicalize architecture, and emphasize infection prevention and control. It is imperative that we consider a convergence of the healthcare and design disciplines in order to promote innovative solutions to augment built environment resilience and subsequently support equitable, safe and efficient care delivery.
Lectures
Event: Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics – Seminar Series
Title: Healthcare Architecture: A Moral Imperative
Date: January 31, 2020
There is increasing recognition and understanding of the impact built space has on people.
Healthcare architecture has strongly advocated for patient-centered design, but can the resulting concealment of clinical spaces devalue the role of medical professionals? With a recent paradigm shift towards design quality measurement, has the social responsibility of health architects changed?
Obligations to develop an ethically-based framework to structure design decisions and allocation discussions in healthcare architecture are explored.
Keynote Presentations, Lectures
Event: Harvard University Graduate School of Design Lecture Series
Title: Habitats for Healers: Architecture Design for Clinicians
Date: April 29 2019
Dochitect was invited to the Harvard’s Graduate School of Design to discuss design for health providers:
Lectures
Event: Design Museum Boston
Title: The Architecture of Health
Date: January 25, 2019
Design Museum Mornings with Diana Anderson, MD, M.Arch, healthcare architect, and a board-certified internist.Can architecture impact health? Increasingly, clinicians are asking not only for the architect’s perspective, but to develop a skill-set and knowledge-base that will allow them to help shape the future of health. Architects aim to engage clinical professionals in research, education, and practice. For some patients, design can succeed where drugs may fail. For clinicians, the built environment can support and improve efficient care delivery. We all have a shared goal in seeking to enhance health outcomes through innovations in the design of healthcare spaces.
Dochitect speaks at the Design Museum Boston Morning event about The Architecture of Health!
Keynote Presentations, Lectures
Event: Institute for Human Centered Design, Boston
Title: Architectural Form + Clinical Function: A Design Paradigm Follows
Date: October 9, 2018
“A thought-provoking talk. I also loved your sketches.”
“Diana was amazing! So articulate and thoughtful, we are excited to see what you do next!”
“‘Design matters & design can prevent disease’ – Dr. Diana Anderson @dochitect – on #ethics in architecture & design for healthcare – speaking at @IHCDesign for #HUBweek #architecture #designmatters”
Lecture overview: The delivery and design of healthcare today is rapidly changing, and increasingly complex. How are we closing the gap between designer intent and user experience? Increasingly, clinicians are asking not only for the architect’s perspective, but to develop a skill-set and knowledge-base that will allow them to help shape the future of health. Architects aim to engage clinical professionals within research, education and practice. We all have a shared goal in seeking to enhance health outcomes through innovations in the design of healthcare spaces, technologies, care delivery systems and policies. Specialized experts who can offer unique perspectives and hybrid models in problem-solving of complex systems are increasingly seen. Through combined thinking, research-based design has expanded to understand and improve the experience within healthcare spaces.
For some patients, design can succeed where drugs may fail. For clinicians, the built environment can support and improve efficient care delivery. Current trends, ideas and next steps for design to enrich our healthcare interface are presented, including an overview of:
(1) the infrequent historical intersection and recent convergence of medicine and design;
(2) the impact of architecture on health for preventative care;
(3) the future of health with an emphasis on multidisciplinary collaborative space, technology, and health spaces within our homes.
Presentation Title: A Dochitect and a User/Expert Share Views of Healthcare Design
Event: Institute for Human Centered Design Lecture Series
Presentation Date: Thursday, December 10, 2015
Event Location: Boston, MA
Dr. Anderson lectures at the Institute for Human Centered Care. Watch the session video here.
Session Description:
Two experts, one an architect/physician and one a user/expert collaborated on an essay in the Health Environments Research & Design (HERD) Journal. Dr. Diana Anderson, MRAIC and Penny Shaw, Ph.D. present on the critical need for human-centered healthcare design.
Penny reached out to Diana after reading a piece in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) in order to relate her story of how a window changed her experience dramatically while in long-term care. They teamed up to write a piece for HERD that builds on the topic of windows and exterior views.
Read the HERD Letter to the Editors- A View From and On the Window here.
Read the JAGS article- Rx: Window Bed here.
Lectures
Publication: American Journal of Medical Quality
Publication Date: Am J Med Qual. 2015 Apr 8. pii: 1062860615581199.
Authors: Diana C. Anderson, MD, MArch, Thomas S. Postler, PHD, Thuy-Tien Dam, MD
Abstract
Patient falls are the most common type of in-hospital accidents. The objective of this retrospective descriptive study was to describe the locations and characteristics of hospital-related falls. Data on patient characteristics, including locations and fall circumstances, were collected through incident reports and medical records. A total of 1822 falls were documented at a 921-bed, urban academic hospital center over a one-year period; 1767 (97.0%) of the falls occurred in the hospital setting, 55 (3.0%) in ambulatory care. The majority of falls (80.8%) occurred within inpatient units; the remainder within the greater hospital campus. In all, 73.4% of fallers had fall prevention protocols implemented prior to the fall. The youngest age group (≤49 years) had the highest percentage of fallers. This study provides novel insights into variables found to be associated with falling, including location of falls within the hospital campus, efficacy of fall prevention protocols, and age groups.
Additional Press:
Note This research was presented at Medicine Grand Rounds, Department of Internal Medicine Resident Research Day, Columbia University Medical Center, March 26, 2014:
Lectures, Peer-Reviewed Publications
