5 Reasons Why the Built Environment Matters in Healthcare
The UVM Medical Center is creating a better space for our patients, enhancing quality, privacy and healing and providing more room for families. We are doing so through the development of the Robert E. and Holly D. Miller Building, set to open in June 2019.
Read on to find out how this new building leverages structural and physical attributes to enhance the healthcare experience for our patients, families, caregivers, and employees.
1. A Room of One’s Own
The new Miller Building features private, single-bed rooms for all patients. Research shows that patient and caregiver outcomes significantly improve when patients stay in private rooms. Why? More privacy means patients communicate more freely and openly with their care team, receive more social support from visiting friends and family, and enjoy less sleep interruption. Each room in the Miller Building will be 340 square feet and include a full, private bathroom with a shower, and a recliner with a pull-out couch for family members.
2. Seeing the Light
The Miller Building is the first hospital in the United States to fully utilize “dynamic glass,” or “smart glass,” a transition glass for windows that changes as the Earth rotates in relation to the sun. Dynamic glass reduces glare and heat while letting natural light in, creating thermal and visual comfort for increased health and wellbeing. Research shows that when building interiors offer abundant daylight and views of the outdoors, the people inside thrive. Workers are more productive, students learn better, and patients heal faster.
3. Patient Care, At Your Fingertips
Patients will now have access to a bedside tablet called the Rēgo. Rēgo empowers patients to communicate their needs, access information, and control in-room elements like lighting.The device also offers access to MyChart Bedside, a tablet-based application that gives patients and families more information about their hospital stay. Patients can use the app to keep track of their daily schedule, learn more about members of the care team, monitor recent vitals and labs and review educational materials.Electronic whiteboards in each room also provide access to relevant patient information.
4. Care Team Closer to Patients
The layout of the Miller building is designed to make it easy for staff to stay close to their patients’ rooms as they provide care.Central to the layout are the three care stations, which have computers, telephones and monitors, and views of the patient information boards. This gives staff a place to collaborate and work.On each unit there are also 16 micro-computer stations, one for every two rooms, as well as a computer in each patient room. “Access to a computer close to the patient’s bedside is central to the overall design,” says Brianna Kim, Miller program manager. “It makes it easier for the care team to be responsive to patient needs in real time.”
5. Caring for Patients, As Close to the Bedside As Possible
Each floor in the Miller Building includes a team workroom, a multidisciplinary space for caregivers to work, collaborate and teach. Each team workroom has nine computers and a 50-inch computer monitor. “The whole focus,” says Dawn LeBaron, vice president, Hospital Services, “is to make it easier for our staff to care for our patients as close to the bedside as possible.”
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The UVM Medical Center Miller Building opens in June 2019. For more information, please visit uvmhealth.org/medcenter/millerbuilding. To find out how you can support the project, please visit uvmhealth.org/medcenter/miller.
