It was one of those “Ah-hah!” moments. A moment typically reserved for an early morning shower after you've been up all night pondering an issue you can't resolve.

A group of people was standing in the bathroom inside a full-scale, plywood mock-up of a patient room for the new Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend. It was a standard-sized bathroom and much smaller than the bathroom in the mock-up room next door (with an Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA] compliant bathroom).

After looking at both, one team member, a community volunteer, asked, “Why do you have smaller bathrooms? Why aren't they all bigger?” The question got hospital leaders thinking.

“Larger bathrooms are safer,” says Lola Fritz, RN, Sacred Heart's director of operational facilities planning. “Caregivers had complained for years about getting patients into the bathroom.” But it took a community member asking a simple question to make a significant change to the design of the hospital. Now, all patient rooms in the new facility are designed with larger, ADA-compliant bathrooms, eliminating needless transfers when a patient who does not need an ADA-approved bathroom must be moved for one who does.

That experience illustrates just one small example of the process hospital leaders have followed throughout the design and construction of the new, 362-bed regional medical center, Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, part of the PeaceHealth system. Extensive involvement from all levels of administration and staff, coupled with input from the community and evidence-guided hospital design principles, have steered the development of a facility to safely and efficiently deliver quality patient care to the community.

“We had more than 500 nurses, physicians, colleagues, and patients who worked together in the functional and schematic planning of this building,” explains Fritz. “Coupled with that, the design was driven by interviews with patients and their families. Patients reviewed the process of care and shared what they wanted and needed in a healing environment.”

Patient rooms ensure privacy and safety

One of Sacred Heart at RiverBend's most noticeable differences is that all patient rooms are private and larger than before, inviting family members to stay closer to the patient or stay overnight, if desired. Research shows that patients not only prefer private rooms, but also that privacy encourages them to share sensitive health information with providers. Private rooms prevent the spread of infection, as well.

The hospital looked carefully at research throughout the design process as an active partner in the Pebble Project—a joint research effort between The Center for Health Design and selected healthcare providers. Project members identify, promote, and incorporate design elements that make a difference in a hospital's quality of care and operational efficiency.

An example of patient safe design at Sacred Heart at RiverBend is medication at the bedside. To ensure that patients receive the correct medication and dosage, medications at Sacred Heart at RiverBend will be delivered and stored inside the private patient rooms in a locked drawer. Nurses will have a computer, the medication (in the locked drawer), and the patient all in one place. Hospital leaders believe this design will greatly reduce medication errors due to distraction, which can occur when nurses have to leave the room to retrieve medication.