The gaps between healthcare service and building design: a state of the art review

Healthcare buildings are designed to achieve diverse objectives, ranging from providing appropriate environments where care can be delivered to communities to increasing operational efficiency and improving patient flows and the patient experience. Improvements in operational efficiency should result from state-of-the-art buildings, more appropriate layouts, departmental adjacencies, efficient clinical and business processes and enhanced information systems. However, complexities around requirements and stakeholders management may prevent the achievement of such objectives. The aim of this article is to identify and understand how healthcare services (re)design and building design can be integrated to facilitate increased performance both in terms of service delivery and future changes. Findings indicate that current approaches and innovation are restricted due to functional barriers in the design process, and that there is a need to support the development of operations driven design through time (e.g. flexible and durable) that satisfies diverse needs.