Introducing EDAC

The Center for Health Design (CHD) has built its foundation firmly on the platform that healthcare construction projects utilizing credible evidence in the design decision-making process yield safer healing environments and that these environments best support the functional performance of caregivers and all who work there.

This concept is embraced within the healthcare design and construction industry and is often included in the selection criteria used to determine the best design team for a building project. Yet, if you ask 10 people to define evidence-based design, you likely will receive 10 different answers.

While the industry as a whole subscribes to the concept of evidence-based design, individuals often hesitate when it comes time for implementation. There is great uncertainty associated with identifying relevant, credible evidence; crafting a hypothesis with an intended outcome; gathering data—both during the project and postoccupancy—that will support or dispute the hypothesis; and how and where to publish findings for future project teams to reference as credible evidence.

In 2005, CHD received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop an Evidence-Based Design Assessment and Certification (EDAC) program. At the HEALTHCARE DESIGN.05 conference, CHD held a workshop to introduce the EDAC program and invited interested workshop attendees to be part of the effort to create the program. This colossal task included defining the field of evidence-based design, establishing standards, building educational courses, and crafting an accreditation examination. From that initial workshop, more than 100 healthcare experts from across the country agreed to volunteer their time and began to develop EDAC. The efforts of these volunteers over the first year established the foundation upon which the program would be built.

The program is based on a two-phase model: Phase 1 (current) is the accreditation of individuals, and phase 2 (future) is the certification of projects. EDAC will educate every professional who participates in a healthcare building project on the procedure of incorporating credible evidence into design decisions. It's a process, a set of behaviors that need to be integrated by each member of the project team. The EDAC program also incorporates the benefits of an interdisciplinary design team, the eight components of the Environment of Care, and the overall connection to the healthcare delivery system.

Understanding EDAC content

Throughout the development of the EDAC program, CHD has kept true to our core principals: research, education, and advocacy. Years of research have been applied to developing the program, which focuses on the following content domains:

• Evidence-based Design for Healthcare

• Research

• Pre-design

• Design

• Construction and Occupancy

Educational tools are being modeled around these five content domains. Information regarding the specific content the exam will cover is posted on the CHD Web site at http://www.healthdesign.org/edac.

Any individual involved in the healthcare design and construction process will find value in the educational modules of EDAC and the distinction of becoming EDAC accredited. The intent of the EDAC test is to verify individuals (candidates) knowledge of how to incorporate credible evidence into their design decision making process. The exam will not ask candidates to identify existing evidence for a specific topic, but rather it will ask candidates to identify the process of incorporating existing, credible evidence into the design decision-making process.

Candidates who become EDAC accredited will be recognized as proficient in the process of evidence-based design. For healthcare organizations committed to incorporating evidence-based design into their building projects, EDAC accreditation communicates a design practitioner's capabilities through an impartial third party, The Center for Health Design.