Workspaces Designed Just for Nurses

You can’t have good patient care without a smoothly working nursing staff, and you can’t have a smoothly working nursing staff without good hospital design. But how many times have you heard or said this: “When they designed this place, it would’ve been nice if they’d asked the nurses.”

Well, one hospital did.

Sierra Providence East Medical Center in El Paso, Texas (110 beds), asked veteran nurses early on in the building process what they wanted and needed, and what would help make their nursing care most effective.

Hospital CEO Sally Hurt-Steffen had a couple of considerations right off the bat: productivity and nurses who are not getting any younger.

“One of my concerns in a 275,000-square-foot facility,” she told a nursing publication, “is how far the nurse is going to have to walk between the nursing station, the patient rooms, supply rooms and medication rooms."

The solution to a potential problem: Cluster equipment and supplies at the remote nursing stations.

Another potential problem was averted in the ICU.

The direction in which the beds were originally placed was wrong. The first blueprints called for a floor plan that had the foot of the beds closest to the observation windows, giving nurses great views of patients’ feet. At the advice of the nurses, the rooms were redesigned so patients’ heads were visible.

Other features nurses at the El Paso hospital will appreciate are larger-than-normal rooms that will accommodate equipment, result in a less claustrophobic effect and provide a measure of safety for nurses; and electric-eye nightlights that will contribute to safety and eliminate the need to turn on those glaring ceiling lights in the middle of the night.

Do you like your workplace?

What’s good and bad about it?

How would you change it and what design features would you like planners to include if you could design your workplace from scratch?

What does your dream workplace look like?

Tell us and we’ll share your fantasies.