Hauenstein Center at Saint Mary's Health Care New Design Improves Patient Safety as Well as Environment

"Triple Bottom Line" of People, Profit, Planet Benefit from the Sustainable Design

The Hauenstein Center at Saint Mary's Health Care, which opened in mid-February to neuroscience and critical care patients with 64 inpatient rooms, has already proved its worth in measurable ways beyond patient care. The sustainable design of the facility, which aspires to a Silver LEED™ certification, has resulted in significant improvements as indicated by "triple bottom line" measurements.

The inpatient rooms in the neuroscience and critical care units (floors 2 and 3) of the Hauenstein Center are acuity adaptable. These high-technology rooms provide a means of keeping patients in the same room from admission until discharge, regardless of the patient’s acuity level. The result is a healing, patient-centric atmosphere in which rooms can periodically be reconfigured to provide nurses and staff access to all equipment and technology needed to care for the patient throughout his or her entire stay, thus eliminating the need for most patient transfers.

Results for March 2009, measured in comparison to March 2008, when patients did not have the benefit of acuity adaptable rooms, are significant, positively affecting the "triple bottom line" of people, profit, and planet. "We found that we've had an 80 percent reduction in patient transfers in March alone," reports Liz Murphy, Saint Mary's Vice President of Patient Care Services, "which means that we reduced the hand-offs which are known to be safety risks for patients, reduced confusion for physicians, patients, and families when patients are moved around, reduced the need for additional housekeeping and cleaning of rooms, and reduced the chance for lost items during transport. Finally, having these acuity adaptable rooms positively impacts the patient experience because they do not have to get used to new sets of nurses and other staff."

Traditionally, patient transfers are common, especially as hospital occupancy rates increase; transfers often result in bottlenecks in patient flow, delays in care, lack of continuity in patient care, and other inefficiencies. On average, 40 to 70 percent of patients on the typical inpatient-nursing unit in the United States are transferred each day.

Nursing shortages and a lack of adequate bed capacity often create significant delays for those being transferred, including missed or delayed treatments and the potential for medication errors due to problems during patient handoffs. Saint Mary’s staff studied the issue during the planning of the Hauenstein Center and made the strategic decision to implement the acuity adaptable concept. "It's a model that has worked in other medical centers across the country, and now we have it here in Grand Rapids," commented Murphy.

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