Healthcare Follow Leaders Karen Freeman and Laura Poltronieri share insights on designing pediatric healthcare services that accommodate the wants of sufferers with neurodiverse circumstances.

Freeman and Poltronieri element how HOK’s Healthcare group designs areas that improve the healthcare expertise for neurodivergent sufferers and their households from the second a affected person arrives on the facility.

Excerpted from I+S Design:

Particularly in an entryway, overwhelming colours, gentle and exercise ought to be prevented. A secondary entrance and set of elevators may very well be thought of to permit for a much less stimulating introduction to the house. Shoppers might be bought on these strikes with the prospect of getting a really well-oiled machine—sufferers which can be calm and cozy permit workers to do their jobs in a way more environment friendly and significant method.

Play areas that deal with all sensory wants from seekers to avoidance ought to be thought of, in addition to therapeutic seating choices from swings to rocking chairs. Pet remedy zones may also make for an expertise that get kids excited for repeat visits. Small enclosures like those who populate the ready room at Lucile Packard Kids’s Hospital at Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif. return a way of management again into the fingers of sufferers, giving them a wholesome type of escape.

Exercise carts and little one life specialists to facilitate their use additionally play an vital function in ready areas. They’re getting used for arts and crafts, sensory actions and even bereavement or end-of-life actions akin to honoring a baby with a handprint, footprint or scrapbook.

LED lighting is cheap and long-lasting, is available in totally different shapes, codecs and colours and most significantly might be dimmable and quiet.

Freeman and Poltronieri advise towards automated flush valves on bogs as it may be very alarming for kids. In addition they report seeing fewer and fewer hospitals utilizing overhead paging know-how and opting as a substitute for particular person paging programs, some with badges and a name button with RFDI monitoring. It permits workers to shortly name safety or for reinforcements with out contributing to overhead noise.

Selling wellness and wellness schooling ought to all the time be a precedence, with entry to nutritious meals and pure gentle.

“From a undertaking administration standpoint, considered one of our largest challenges is advocating for design selections which can be totally different from the established order,” mentioned Freeman. “We all the time clarify to our purchasers that what is sweet for neurodiverse sufferers—readability, management, out of doors entry—is definitely good for all sufferers. They know that each design resolution they make has an impression on the undertaking objectives, finances and timeline. If we are able to make the case for delicate design options that enhance the expertise for all, the main focus shifts from issues about price and schedule to the potential constructive impression of those selections.”