Go inside the hospital room of the future with Andrew Quirk, a senior vice president at Skanska, to find out what inpatient care might look like by the year 2020

Andrew Quirk: Senior VP, Healthcare Center of Excellence, Skanska

“We are sitting in patient room 2020, which is a look forward to where the patient room might be in the year 2020. The space here is really to help facilitate the delivery of care; make it more streamlined; make it more efficient. I think that when you have looked at patient rooms in the past that have said that they are the future look at patient healthcare, it’s a different colour of paint and different colour of flooring. This really takes a better look at where the industry is headed and it’s really technologically driven.”

“Ideally you don’t want to be in a hospital, but if you find yourself in one, you want to know that it’s clean; you’re being well taken care of; the environment is comfortable. One of the things you notice right away is how wide open the bathroom is. And so in this case rolling a wheelchair in where you have complete accessibility is important. And then even the shower itself starts to be customizable.”

“One of the big things is patient safety. So in the design of the space that was one of the major aspects we looked at. The floor that we’re actually standing on has a computer mat underneath. It can track your footsteps. So as a patient puts their feet on the ground or in the unfortunate act that they might fall out of the bed, it immediately detects that and sends alarms back to the clinician workspace. The other great idea is the computer. The clinician comes in and brings down the board, so you can sit here and do your entries, converse with the patient that’s right here, and when this closes the UV lights kill any kinds of germs that might be present.”

“And so this really the big customizable piece right here. We have lighting, but then we might have future computer systems. Wi-fi is built into this system for your phones, or telemedicince, or future robotics and things like that, that can connect out into the hallway and back to the nurse stations.”

“This is the bedside table. This is really the patient’s link to the entire room. This has a built in iPad that connects you to this patient ribbon. Obviously do the simple things like nurse call, connects you to the outside world through Skype and your television. There are things like a halo effect for noise cancellation that goes over your head. Think of all the dings and noises in a hospital, patient satisfaction rates is another thing that should go up. You can create your own mood. The patient can put it into a night mode that will start dropping the lights down. This halo here is completely customizable so you can start with a very bright space for doing an exam or it can go into a mode that you see passing clouds with a blue sky. And this is also the link to connectivity for clinicians as well. You can see results with this; see your vitals. It’s really about drawing in the patient; drawing in the outside world into one experience that can be controlled right from the bed.”

“It’s almost empowering a patient, I think, if you get beyond the technology and the different look. It’s really empowering the patient to be more active in their healthcare, delivery of care, interact with clinicians a little bit easier. If you’ve ever spent time in a hospital, either the patient or the visitor, one of the first things you look at is the cleanliness of it and the lighting of the space. And I think that this room here, patient room 2020,  really kind of changes that mood, almost, of a patient. The basic core of this is to start a dialogue and to make change in the industry.”

“If we even have one element in here that is incorporated into a hospital that is a success.”

Original link: http://time.com/3833111/inside-hospital-room-future/