“Reimagining the role a building can play in the health of its inhabitants and the locale in which it is situated.”

Hospital architecture has undergone a change in its functional focus, and hospitals are conceived as a set of spaces that attempt to give healthy experiences, rather than a space containing health.

A key determinant of everything that matters when it comes to health interventions — the experience, cost, and results — has been hiding in plain sight. It is the buildings and spaces in which patients are treated. The size and layout of a room, whether a bed sits in the middle or against a wall (even which wall), how much space is maintained for patients to walk versus how many beds or operating equipment can be accommodated, have not been considered predictors of health outcomes in the past. That’s changing, as architects and health care organizations come together to incorporate principles of social design into the built health care environment.