Acuity Adaptability: Identifying the desired outcomes is crucial

Seventh in a series of excerpts from the free executive guide, “Acuity Adaptability: Innovative Planning and Design for Responsive Healthcare Delivery.” 

By Mike Zorich and Corey Gaarde 

If your facility is considering a potentially costly paradigm shift to an acuity adaptable design that keeps a patient in the same room from admission to discharge, it helps to understand what outcomes the shift is designed to achieve. These include:  

• Shorter waits in emergency departments by providing all-purpose rooms that patients can be shuttled to quickly after a short boarding process 
• More outpatient care and fewer hospital beds, a continuation of the consumer-based healthcare approach that places more reliance on local clinics and private urgent care facilities  
• Reduction of patient transfers, saving personnel hours incurred in these transfers, freeing up patient hours for direct treatment, and reducing the time patients spend in the hospital  
• Fewer medication errors due to the consistency of care providers who have become familiar with each case over the long term and fewer instructions lost due to no patient transfers  
• Fewer infections and other complications due to the ability to render care more quickly by bringing care to the patient rather than bringing the patient to the care.  
• More trust between patients and providers. Acuity-adaptable healthcare design allows a patient to enjoy consistent care by the same physician, nurse, or other healthcare provider.  

If these problems don’t exist at your facility, the shift to acuity adaptability might not be indicated. However, if these problems do exist – or might exist in the future – the shift in design may be well worth the effort.  

Next, we explore the actual journey to acuity adaptability. 

Previous: Acuity Adaptability: What makes acuity adaptability important now 

Next: Acuity Adaptability: The journey to acuity adaptability 

For an unabridged version of this content, download the executive guide, “Acuity Adaptability: Innovative Planning and Design for Responsive Healthcare Delivery.” A recorded webinar on the topic is also available.