Location is important in real estate, but it’s critical — literally — when the topic is hospital interior design and the location of patient rooms.
Researchers used tracking chips in nurses' badges to investigate the way a facility's layout affected nurses' behavior and patient care, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. The study followed five months of interactions between 217 nurses and 30,000 patients in an undisclosed hospital's emergency department.
Among the findings is that nurses visited distant rooms less frequently but for longer periods of time. Also, patients whose rooms were farther from the nurses' station waited longer in between visits and were more likely to use their call buttons more often.
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