Description
The research will focus on the design of health care environments aimed for stroke care; nurturing crossdisciplinary
insights into design (involving experts in architecture and health caring sciences). There is an emerging evidence
base from healthcare architecture, environmental psychology, nursing, medicine that collectively reinforces the expectation that safety and quality of care should and can be designed into the architecture of healthcare environments. Thus, questions are raised concerning how well this evidence-based knowledge is integrated into newly built stroke units? Do designers take advantage of the existing evidence that can support their decision-making regarding the design? How well is the design adapted to the stroke patient's special needs, requirements and difficulties? Does the design of the physical environment facilitate or impede the quality of the patient care? With a case-study methodology we will study newly built stroke care units and identify factors in the physical environment that influence patient?s health and care processes. Several data collection methods (direct observations of care processes, interviews, questionnairs, and assessments of building programs will be used.
Financiers
