medication errors | Susan Gibson | Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center | Center for Health Design

My head swirls with a cloud of data. After a critical care unit was remodeled so that patient rooms were large enough to easily accommodate family, two-thirds fewer patients suffered falls. … Adapting rooms so that patients didn't have to move from ICU to intermediate care to hospital room as their condition changed cut medication errors by 67 percent. … HEPA filters cut rates of airborne infection. … More nurses disinfect their hands between patients if alcohol-rub dispensers are plentiful. … I look around this hospital and compare: There are alcohol-rub dispensers all around, but the rooms are small. I have no screwdriver to crack open the vent and check the air filter.

I wonder how my father would feel if he were in Boise, Idaho, at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, which is spending $161 million on remodeling and additions. Its plans were all set when a healthcare design member from the Center for Health Design came to visit and "practically got on his knees and begged us to change it," recalls Susan Gibson, vice president of mission services. "The new tower was between the two old ones, and a lot of the patient rooms had views of the other buildings. We redesigned the whole building for better views."

Besides those views of the Rocky Mountain foothills, the new project includes the fruits of Saint Alphonsus' own in-house research. The hospital built prototypes of its new rooms and asked nurses to critique them. The nurses asked for more work space in the medication rooms, where they assemble patients' prescriptions, and got it. "They needed to be able to concentrate," Gibson explains. "It was a way to try to reduce their stress and reduce medication errors."