Pebble Project* partners, ER One at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and HermanMiller Healthcare recently released findings from their disaster-responsive emergency department project. Entitled, ‘Project ER One”, teams from both of these organizations worked together to create a strong emergency room infrastructure that can handle day-to-day operations along with a sudden influx of patients, that could happen when a natural disaster or terrorist attack occurs.
As part of the project, the team identified requirements and key problems that needed to be addressed. A top requirement for Project ER One was to create an emergency department that could be easily replicated in other hospitals. They also identified 10 key problems that affect how well emergency departments can respond in a crisis:
1. Inadequate surge capacity (not scalable)
2. Catastrophic degradation under stress
3. Unsafe re-circulated air
4. Unsafe surface contamination
5. Inadequate arrival/departure capacity
6. Poor control of entry points
7. Poor data availability
8. Poor external and internal communications
9. High dependency on external utilities
10. Inadequate decontamination capability
Next was to create design solutions to address these problems and compile their findings.
"We're doing research for a period of time to really understand how this environment responds better to the needs of the caregivers and the patients. We're looking at how it functions on a day-to-day basis to really better understand if it is supporting the caregivers'" says Jill Joseph, Design Lead for HermanMiller Healthcare.
To read more about Project ER One and their findings, click here.
Video by Herman Miller Healthcare | link to video
* The Pebble Project is The Center for Health Design’s main research initiative. The purpose of the work is to create change in the healthcare industry by providing researched and documented examples of healthcare facilities whose design has made a difference in improving patient and staff outcomes, as well as operating efficiency. For more information about the Pebble Project, email Mark Goodman at mgoodman [at] healthdesign [dot] org.