Every day, the editors of Healthcare Design strive to deliver the content you, our readers, need to do your jobs better and create truly healing environments.

Doing so requires exploration of the hottest topics, emerging trends, and latest projects in healthcare design—from all angles.

But interest in a specific article is a subjective thing, at the end of the day. So it’s always interesting to dive into results at year’s end and see what posts to our website gained the most traction, not to mention how the powers of liking, retweeting, and sharing converged to drive traffic to a particular piece of content or perhaps to multiple stories on a single topic.

So what did all of the analytics analysis tell us? For one, 2014 was the year of the patient—without question.

You’d be hard-pressed to have a conversation with anyone working in healthcare design today and not have patient satisfaction and/or patient-centered design mentioned, as HCAHPS scores, in particular, are now tied to reimbursments and hold more weight than ever. Additionally, competition among providers is escalating at the local level as patients now have more choice in where they receive care, and more urgent challenges such as reducing healthcare-associated infections remain top of mind.

Similarly, Healthcare Design’s Top 10 most-clicked stories in 2014 provide more evidence of the mounting interest in creating spaces that not only enhance outcomes but that leave patients walking away from a healthcare experience with a favorable opinion of it.

From integrating technology to enhance the user experience to creating waiting rooms that make visitors more comfortable to reimaging the patient room to provide more control, the topics of articles ran the gamut, but patients were almost always at their core.

I have a hunch we might be saying the same thing at the end of 2015. But for now, check out the list of our most-read articles in 2014 (and a bonus list of our most popular blogs, too) and see what you may have missed or revisit an old favorite. We’ll be reposting the articles on our homepage throughout the remainder of 2014, too.

A very happy New Year to you all!
2014 Healthcare Design Top 10 Articles

1. How To Design A ‘Smart’ Hospital

2. Increasing Patient Satisfaction By Decreasing Patient Room Size 

3. Modular Construction Delivers Flexibility To Healthcare

4. Waiting Rooms: How To Design To Impress

5. Camp Pendleton Replacement Hospital Mirrors Military Traditions

6. Rethinking The Emergency Department

7. PHOTO TOUR: Fontana Medical Center

8. Room For Improvement: Patient Room Special Report

9. Designing For The Patient Experience

10. Therapy By Design

2014 Healthcare Design Top 10 Blogs

1. 5 Design Ideas For Healthcare Waiting Rooms

2. Design For Pediatric Cancer Patients Of All Ages

3. The Built-In Benefits Of Retail Conversions For Healthcare

4. Hospital Wayfinding And The Anxiety Factor

5. Color Considerations For 2014

6. 4 Healthcare Market Trends To Watch

7. Boomer Nation: Applying Generational Research To Design Approaches

8. Evidence-based Design Origins

9. What Really Matters In Healthcare Facilities?

10. Patients Determine The Value Of Healthcare Design