Green Healthcare Institutions : Health, Environment, and Economics, Workshop Summary is based on the ninth workshop in a series of workshops sponsored by the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine since the roundtable began meeting in 1998. When choosing workshops and activities, the roundtable looks for areas of mutual concern and also areas that need further research to develop a strong environmental science background. This workshop focused on the environmental and health impacts related to the design, construction, and operations of healthcare facilities, which are part of one of the largest service industries in the United States. Healthcare institutions are major employers with a considerable role in the community, and it is important to analyze this significant industry. The environment of healthcare facilities is unique; it has multiple stakeholders on both sides, as the givers and the receivers of care. In order to provide optimal care, more research is needed to determine the impacts of the built environment on human health. The scientific evidence for embarking on a green building agenda is not complete, and at present, scientists have limited information. Green Healthcare Institutions : Health, Environment, and Economics, Workshop Summary captures the discussions and presentations by the speakers and participants; they identified the areas in which additional research is needed, the processes by which change can occur, and the gaps in knowledge.

A state-of-the-art blueprint for architects, planners, and hospital administrators, Hospital and Healthcare Facility Design provides innovative ideas and concrete guidelines for planning and designing facilities for the rapidly changing healthcare system.

Hospital and Healthcare Security, Fifth Edition, examines the issues inherent to healthcare and hospital security, including licensing, regulatory requirements, litigation, and accreditation standards. Building on the solid foundation laid down in the first four editions, the book looks at the changes that have occurred in healthcare security since the last edition was published in 2001. It consists of 25 chapters and presents examples from Canada, the UK, and the United States. It first provides an overview of the healthcare environment, including categories of healthcare, types of hospitals, the nonhospital side of healthcare, and the different stakeholders. It then describes basic healthcare security risks/vulnerabilities and offers tips on security management planning. The book also discusses security department organization and staffing, management and supervision of the security force, training of security personnel, security force deployment and patrol activities, employee involvement and awareness of security issues, implementation of physical security safeguards, parking control and security, and emergency preparedness. Healthcare security practitioners and hospital administrators will find this book invaluable. - Practical support for healthcare security professionals, including operationally proven policies, and procedures - Specific assistance in preparing plans and materials tailored to healthcare security programs - Summary tables and sample forms bring together key data, facilitating ROI discussions with administrators and other departments - General principles clearly laid out so readers can apply the industry standards most appropriate to their own environment NEW TO THIS EDITION: - Quick-start section for hospital administrators who need an overview of security issues and best practices

Hospitals and nursing homes are responding to changes in the health care system by modifying staffing levels and the mix of nursing personnel. But do these changes endanger the quality of patient care? Do nursing staff suffer increased rates of injury, illness, or stress because of changing workplace demands? These questions are addressed in Nursing Staff in Hospitals and Nursing Homes, a thorough and authoritative look at today's health care system that also takes a long-term view of staffing needs for nursing as the nation moves into the next century. The committee draws fundamental conclusions about the evolving role of nurses in hospitals and nursing homes and presents recommendations about staffing decisions, nursing training, measurement of quality, reimbursement, and other areas. The volume also discusses work-related injuries, violence toward and abuse of nursing staffs, and stress among nursing personnelâ€"and examines whether these problems are related to staffing levels. Included is a readable overview of the underlying trends in health care that have given rise to urgent questions about nurse staffing: population changes, budget pressures, and the introduction of new technologies. Nursing Staff in Hospitals and Nursing Homes provides a straightforward examination of complex and sensitive issues surround the role and value of nursing on our health care system.

This indispensable reference book captures key recent developments in the rapidly evolving field of sustainable hospital architecture. Today’s architects must provide hospitals which enable high quality care for diverse patient populations in carbon neutral care settings, and this book succinctly considers what needs to be done in order to meet that challenge. The contemporary hospital is viewed in the context of global climate change, the planet’s diminishing natural resources and the spiralling cost of operating healthcare facilities. Stephen Verderber considers the future of the hospital, and supplies a compendium of 100 planning and design considerations for the building type. The book includes twenty-eight case studies of built and unbuilt hospitals from around the world. These are grouped into five types - autonomous community based hospitals, children’s hospitals, rehabilitation and elderly care centres and hospitals, regional medical centre campuses, and visionary (unbuilt) projects. Beautifully and extensively illustrated with many photographs, diagrams and floor plans, this is essential reading for all architects, planners, engineers, product manufacturers, clients, healthcare providers and government agencies involved in the present and future of sustainable healthcare environments.

Architecture of Health is a story about the design and life of hospitals-about how they are born and evolve, about the forces that give them shape, and the shifts that conspire to render them inadequate. Reading architecture through the history of hospitals is a deciphering tool for unlocking the elemental principles of architecture and the intractable laws of human and social conditions that architecture serves in each of our lives.This book encounters brilliant and visionary designers who were hospital architects but also systems designers, driven by the aim of social change. They faced the contradictions of health care in their time and found innovative ways to solve for specific medical dilemmas. Less-known designers like Filarete, Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Albert Schweitzer, Max Fry and Jane Drew, John Dawe Tetlow, Gordon Friesen, Thomas Wheeler, and Eberhard Zeidler are studied here, while the medical spaces of more widely-known architects like Isambard Brunel, Aalvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, and Paul Rudolph also help inform this history. All these characters were polymaths and provocateurs, but none quite summarizes this history more succinctly than Florence Nightingale, who in laying out her guidelines for ward design in 1859, shows how the design of a medical facility can influence an entire political and social order.Architecture of Health, richly illustrated with images and never before published renderings and drawings from the MASS Design Group, charts historical epidemics alongside modern and contemporary architectural transformations in service of medicine, health, and habitation; it explores how infrastructure facilitates healing and architecture's greater role in constructing our societies.

Health care HVAC systems serve facilities in which the population is uniquely vulnerable and exposed to an elevated risk of health, fire, and safety hazard. These heavily regulated, high-stakes facilities undergo continuous maintenance, verification, inspection, and recertification, typically operate 24/7, and are owner occupied for long life. The HVAC systems in health care facilities must be carefully designed to be installed, operated and maintained in coordination with specialized buildings services, including emergency and normal power, plumbing and medical gas systems, automatic transport, fire protections and a myriad of IT systems, all within a limited building envelope.