By SUZANNE SATALINE
The room's soft white lighting illuminates a wall of etched glass and blond wood. There's hand-laid tile in the shower and the couch unfolds, letting family members stay. Even the shape of this hospital room is quirky, with walls that hide wires and tubing and slant so the occupant will better see the leafy treetops through large windows.It's peaceful, perhaps practical, and it could be the hospital patient room of the future.
The staff at the University Medical Center at Princeton will soon assign one patient at a time to this newly built room, designed partly with staff input, housed on a post-surgical floor. Designed using research funded with a $2.8 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the room has ushered Princeton into the growing field of health-care design.
Architects and health-care centers are seeking to prove that a room's layout and accessories can help patients heal faster and cut down on mishaps and staff error, as some research has shown.
"Once we put patients in here, we'll see if everything is right," says Susan G. Lorenz, Princeton's chief nursing officer, who helped design the room.
More hospitals have started to rethink how patient rooms can improve the occupant's health. They're seeking to reduce the spread of infections, the rise in patient falls, and the healing benefits of outdoor views. Patient falls are common in hospitals, and 10% of fatal falls by older adults happen there, according to data compiled by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Single rooms are becoming standard, Ms. Lorenz said, because research shows that the privacy reduces infection rates and enhances communication between staff and patients.
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