Redesigning hospitals for the telehealth revolution
ABOVE Micaela Sheahan is a Senior Researcher with Hassell.
WORDS MICAELA SHEAHAN ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN /
As the influence of tech on our lives expands, so too does the reach of digital healthcare. COVID-19 has accelerated the uptake of a variety of virtual care services, not least the humble telehealth phone call between patient and practitioner.
PEOPLE
seeing their doctor on a screen or over the phone, public areas within hospitals may make way for dedicated telehealth spaces. Many health facility design guidelines have only limited references to telehealth, offering general suggestions about good internet connections, ergonomically positioned IT equipment and neutral background colours. All valid points, but in a post-pandemic world, healthcare planners will need more sophisticated guidance. Some hospitals are already exploring activity-based work spaces to combine telehealth and in-person consultations, while others have made significant investments in digital-only hubs to connect with patients at home. Each hospital will need a tailored solution to suit its unique patient characteristics, funding, staff profiles and models of care. Based on the research findings, Hassell explored a series of potential design scenarios for hospital outpatient departments to prompt a much-needed industry discussion about what clinicians need to continue to offer telehealth – beyond good wi-fi and a well-positioned laptop. These discussions will ideally lead to more detailed healthcare facility design guidelines that help hospitals deliver safe, effective and convenient telehealth services to their patients.
JUL-SEP 2021
is sustained as expected, hospitals will soon be busy planning new and refurbished spaces to accommodate emerging digital models of care, if they haven’t started already. Unfortunately there aren’t many built precedents or best-practice guides to steer hospitals through this change. Despite the availability of appropriate technology, patient and clinician reluctance has meant that uptake, and therefore spaces to conduct telehealth, has been limited. But after the year we’ve just had, perceptions of telehealth have altered dramatically. It has proven to be an effective, efficient and convenient method of care for some (though obviously not all) patient cohorts, including the elderly and people with chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and stroke rehabilitation. Telehealth delivered at scale requires a more considered response than the (understandably) cobbled together solutions of 2020, which included borrowed offices, meeting rooms, portable buildings, cars, and in one case, a storage cupboard. Clinicians want acoustic and visual privacy for their patients and prefer to deliver telehealth in existing consult rooms that allow them to swap easily between in-person and online consultations throughout the day. But as more patients become comfortable
/
With the help of The University of Queensland, Hassell investigated the design implications of the exponential increase in telehealth brought about by the pandemic. With a new model of care may come new space typologies, and hospital planners need to be thinking about them now. In the midst of dealing with infection control and community anxiety about COVID-19 through 2020, Australian healthcare providers delivered the long anticipated uptake of telehealth care. Government funded virtual consultations with patients grew exponentially, jumping from 1 million consultations in March 2020 to over 6 million in April alone. 1 Similar patterns were experienced around the world, with one practitioner in London declaring “We’ve had ten years of change in one week.” 2 The pandemic is a real time experiment to show where change can be made safely and effectively. In collaboration with Hassell, The University of Queensland’s Centre for Online Health at the Centre for Health Services Research surveyed and interviewed hospital workers about their telehealth experience during 2020. Put simply, the findings suggest current hospital infrastructure in Australia is ill-equipped to accommodate the significant increase in telehealth services. And if growth in telehealth
3
