Organ Transplantation and the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act: A Fifty-Year Perspective.

Fifty years ago this summer, the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act was adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and approved by the American Bar Association. The UAGA has provided a sound and stable legal platform on which to base an effective nationwide organ donation system. The cardinal principles of altruism, autonomy, and public trust are still important. At a time when confidence and trust in our government and many private institutions has declined, maintaining trust and confidence in our health care system and its commitment to "first, do no harm" has never been more important. Any policies that override these core ethical principles could cause irreparable damage to the public's faith in our transplant system. While progress has been made to increase organ registration and the number of organs transplanted, much more must be done to realize the potential of life-saving therapy without jeopardizing ethical principles.

Ten rules for 21st century healthcare: a US perspective on creating healthy, healing environments.

As healthcare leaders look to the future, they are becoming increasingly aware of the vitally important connection between the quality of care delivered and the physical environments in which that care takes place. In addition, they are beginning to recognise the powerful connection between health care organisations and the environment, the very planet itself. These 10 new rules can provide a template to accelerate improved health, health care, and lower costs. They can serve as guideposts to designing truly healing environments today and tomorrow. The worlds of health care, architecture, the arts and the environment are coming together in new and profoundly powerful ways. Let's have the courage, creativity, and compassion to embrace this new world together.

Can sustainable hospitals help bend the health care cost curve?

As policymakers seek to rein in the nation's escalating health care costs, one area deserving attention is the health system's costly environmental footprint. This study examines data from selected hospitals that have implemented programs to reduce energy use and waste and achieve operating room supply efficiencies. After standardizing metrics across the hospitals studied and generalizing results to hospitals nationwide, the analysis finds that savings achievable through these interventions could exceed $5.4 billion over five years and $15 billion over 10 years. Given the return on investment, the authors rec­ommend that all hospitals adopt such programs and, in cases where capital investments could be financially burdensome, that public funds be used to provide loans or grants, particularly to safety-net hospitals.

Building better healthcare facilities through evidence-based design: breaking new ground at Vancouver Island Health Authority.

Many of today's healthcare facilities were constructed at least 50 years ago, and a growing number have outlived their useful lives. Despite renovations and renewals, they often fall short of providing an appropriate care setting. Clinicians and staff develop a mixture of compromises and workarounds simply to make things function. Evidence-based design principles are often absent from new healthcare facilities, perhaps because of lack of awareness of the principles or because implementing them may fall foul of short-term and short-sighted budgetary decisions. In planning a new healthcare facility in 2008, the executive team at Vancouver Island Health Authority decided to adopt the evidence-based design approach. They conducted site visits to newly constructed hospitals across North America and beyond, to determine best practices in terms of design and construction. These engagements resulted in the implementation of 102 evidence-based design principles and attributes in Victoria's Royal Jubilee hospital, a 500-bed Patient Care Centre. This $350M project was completed on time and on budget, showing that using evidence need not result in delays or higher costs. To date, the results of the evidence-based design are promising, with accolades coming from patients, staff and clinical partners, and a number of immediate and practical benefits for patients, families and care teams alike.

Implementing healthcare excellence: the vital role of the CEO in evidence-based design.

PURPOSE: This paper explores the role of the chief executive officer (CEO) in evidence-based design (EBD), discussing the internal and external challenges that a CEO faces, such as demands for increased quality, safety, patient-and-family-centeredness, increased revenue, and reduced cost. BACKGROUND: Based on a series of interviews and case studies and the experience of the authors as researchers, consultants, and CEOs, this paper provides a model for EBD and recommends actions that a CEO can undertake to create an effective project over the life cycle of a building. TOPICAL HEADINGS: Evidence-Based Design: A Performance-Based Approach to Achieving Key Goals; Key Approaches to Executing Evidence-Based Design; Overcoming Barriers to Innovation: The CEO's Vital Role in Implementing Evidence-Based Design CONCLUSIONS: The CEO bears special responsibility for successful facility project implementation. Only the CEO possesses the responsibility and authority to articulate the strategy, vision, goals, and resource constraints that frame every project. With the support of their boards, CEOs set the stage for the transformation of an organization's culture and fuel clinical and business process reengineering by encouraging and, if necessary, forcing collaboration between the strong disciplinary and departmental divisions found in healthcare systems.

The business case for building better hospitals through evidence-based design.

PURPOSE: After establishing the connection between building well-designed evidence-based facilities and improved safety and quality for patients, families, and staff, this article presents the compelling business case for doing so. It demonstrates why ongoing operating savings and initial capital costs must be analyzed and describes specific steps to ensure that design innovations are implemented effectively. BACKGROUND: Hospital leaders and boards are now beginning to face a new reality: They can no longer tolerate preventable hospital-acquired conditions such as infections, falls, and injuries to staff or unnecessary intra-hospital patient transfers that can increase errors. Nor can they subject patients and families to noisy, confusing environments that increase anxiety and stress. They must effectively deploy all reasonable quality improvement techniques available. To be optimally effective, a variety of tactics must be combined and implemented in an integrated way. Hospital leadership must understand the clear connection between building well-designed healing environments and improved healthcare safety and quality for patients, families, and staff, as well as the compelling business case for doing so. Emerging pay-for-performance (P4P) methodologies that reward hospitals for quality and refuse to pay hospitals for the harm they cause (e.g., infections and falls) further strengthen this business case. RECOMMENDATIONS: When planning to build a new hospital or to renovate an existing facility, healthcare leaders should address a key question: Will the proposed project incorporate all relevant and proven evidence-based design innovations to optimize patient safety, quality, and satisfaction as well as workforce safety, satisfaction, productivity, and energy efficiency? When conducting a business case analysis for a new project, hospital leaders should consider ongoing operating savings and the market share impact of evidence-based design interventions as well as initial capital costs. They should consider taking the 10 steps recommended to ensure an optimal, cost-effective hospital environment. A return-on-investment (ROI) framework is put forward for the use of individual organizations.

The role of the physical environment in crossing the quality chasm.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based design findings are available to help inform hospital decision makers of opportunities for ensuring that quality and safety are designed into new and refurbished facilities. FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVIDENCE: The Institute of Medicine's six quality aims of patient centeredness, safety, effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness, and equity provide an organizing framework for introducing a representative portion of the evidence. Design improvements include single-bed and variable-acuity rooms; electronic access to medical records; greater accommodation for families and visitors; handrails to prevent patient falls; standardization (room layout, equipment, and supplies for improved efficiencies); improved work process flow to reduce delays and wait times; and better assessment of changing demographics, disease conditions, and community needs for appropriately targeted health care services. THE BUSINESS CASE: A recent analysis of the business case suggests that a slight, one-time incremental cost for ensuring safety and quality would be paid back in two to three years in the form of operational savings and increased revenues. Hospitals leaders anticipating new construction projects should take advantage of evidence-based design findings that have the potential of raising the quality of acute care for decades to come.

To the class of 2005: Will you be ready for the quality revolution?

BACKGROUND: Graduates are becoming aware of the vast changes occurring in the health care and scientific environments, which will place unprecedented demands on them. A SECOND REVOLUTION: It has been suggested that the Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm have alerted healthcare professionals and managers to system defects, enlisted a broad array of stakeholders in the agenda, and accelerated changes in practice needed to eliminate errors and unnecessary deaths. It is now commonplace for comparative data on the effectiveness of hospitals and medical groups to be published in this new age of transparency. Coalitions of employers are now urging the adoption of safer practices in hospitals. In addition, the science of quality improvement has flourished and become robust. COMING CHANGES AND POSSIBILITIES: The changes over the next five years will be breathtaking. Those doctors and hospitals with the best clinical outcomes will benefit from seeing more patients and may even be paid more by Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance companies. Patients will access, via the Web, the latest quality information and make more informed choices about where to seek their care. The environment in which care is provided is also undergoing a major transformation. Hospital buildings themselves are becoming more healing, safer places. Graduates may ask themselves, "Will my residency adequately prepare me to understand and apply the science of quality improvement and evidence-based practice?"

The business case for better buildings.

Beginning in 2000, a research collaborative of progressive healthcare organizations came together with The Center for Health Design to evaluate the impact of their new buildings on patient outcomes. Those organizations are now engaged in three-year programs of evaluation, using comparative research instruments and outcome measures. Their experiences are synthesized here in a composite 300-bed "Fable Hospital" to present evidence in support of the business case for better buildings as a key component of better, safer, and less wasteful health care.

The CEO and the future of technology. Panel discussion.

CEOs play a pivotal role in driving the selection and implementation of clinical and information technology within their organizations. Lack of standardization is viewed as the biggest obstacle to clinical transformation.

The business case for better buildings.

The buildings in which customers receive services are inherently part of the service experience. Given the high stress of illness, healthcare facility designs are especially likely to have a meaningful impact on customers. In the past, a handful of visionary "healing environments" such as the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California; Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut; Woodwinds Health Campus in St. Paul, Minnesota; and San Diego Children's Hospital were built by values-driven chief executive officers and boards and aided by philanthropy when costs per square foot exceeded typical construction costs. Designers theorized that such facilities might have a positive impact on patients' health outcomes and satisfaction. But limited evidence existed to show that such exemplary health facilities were superior to conventional designs in actually improving patient outcomes and experiences and the organization's bottom line. More evidence was needed to assess the impact of innovative health facility designs. Beginning in 2ooo, a research collaborative of progressive healthcare organizations voluntarily came together with The Center for Health Design to evaluate their new buildings. Various "Pebble Projects" are now engaged in three-year programs of evaluation, using comparative research instruments and outcome measures. Pebble Projects include hospital replacements, critical care units, cancer units, nursing stations, and ambulatory care centers. The Pebble experiences are synthesized here in a composite 3oo-bed "Fable Hospital" to present evidence in support of the business case for better buildings as a key component of better, safer, and less wasteful healthcare. The evidence indicates that the one-time incremental costs of designing and building optimal facilities can be quickly repaid through operational savings and increased revenue and result in substantial, measurable, and sustainable financial benefits.

Evaluation of the built environment at a children's convalescent hospital: development of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory parent and staff satisfaction measures for pediatric health care facilities.

In preparation for the design, construction, and postoccupancy evaluation of a new Children's Convalescent Hospital, focus groups were conducted and measurement instruments were developed to quantify and characterize parent and staff satisfaction with the built environment of the existing pediatric health care facility, a 30-year-old, 59-bed, long-term, skilled nursing facility dedicated to the care of medically fragile children with complex chronic conditions. The measurement instruments were designed in close collaboration with parents, staff, and senior management involved with the existing and planned facility. The objectives of the study were to develop pediatric measurement instruments that measured the following: (1) parent and staff satisfaction with the built environment of the existing pediatric health care facility, (2) parent satisfaction with the health care services provided to their child, and (3) staff satisfaction with their coworker relationships. The newly developed Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory scales demonstrated internal consistency reliability (average alpha = 0.92 parent report, 0.93 staff report) and initial construct validity. As anticipated, parents and staff were not satisfied with the existing facility, providing detailed qualitative and quantitative data input to the design of the planned facility and a baseline for postoccupancy evaluation of the new facility. Consistent with the a priori hypotheses, higher parent satisfaction with the built environment structure and aesthetics was associated with higher parent satisfaction with health care services (r =.54, p <.01; r =.59, p <.01, respectively). Higher staff satisfaction with the built environment structure and aesthetics was associated with higher coworker relationship satisfaction (r =.53; p <.001; r =.51; p <.01, respectively). The implications of the findings for the architectural design and evaluation of pediatric health care facilities are discussed.