Evidence-based briefing for sustainable healthcare environments

• The aim of the study was to survey the evidence-based information in initial briefs for healthcare environments. The focus was on the initial brief, when the aim is foremost to express design requirements and specifications from the user’s point of view. The study audit 29 briefs by using a new developed instrument to examine the content and quality of information in briefs (CQB-I) (Content and Quality of Briefs Instrument), a new developed and tested instrument. The rationale behind the study is that the brief is one important outcome of a design process that has not been studied as much as necessary. Despite the stated importance of a well developed brief, there exist few studies of the content and quality of the briefs created in design process of new healthcare spaces. The use of Evidence-Based Design (EBD) to support designers to make decisions based on available knowledge about the impact of design solutions on people, costs and management has been addressed recently. Briefing (programming) should enable the communication of the end user’s need into design requirements and thus it is of utmost importance that this is communicated through a brief. The brief should also be a significant base for expressed outcomes for a building performance evaluation. The analysis showed that a majority of the briefs included some kind of evidence-based information. Though, in most of them the information was very sporadic and the information mainly addresses local statistics such as of the number of patients, beds, personnel, and length of stay. There were only two briefs that contain evidence-based information throughout the entire brief.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

evidence-based design

brief

program

briefing

programming

pre-project design

healthcare design

Designa hållbara vårdmiljöer för framtiden

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)