The world of technology is constantly growing and evolving, and this couldn't be any truer than in the healthcare industry. There are a seemingly infinite number of fascinating technologies on the market promising to radically change the way you deliver care. Some of these technologies are so radical that they will require doctors to perform completely different jobs altogether!

The Future of Hospital Work

Because design decisions can have effects that last for decades, designers need to anticipate emerging job titles that will impact operations and healthcare designs. Some examples of future jobs include the "Nano Medic,” “Avatar Manager,” and the “Surgineer” who's title recognizes that future surgeons will also need computer science and engineering skills. Merging these titles with the rapid development of technology will create a new healthcare operations model, and hospital design will likely need to adapt.

One potential adaptation in the wake of evolving tech is the addition and expansion of the "Command Center." The hospital command center of the future incorporates a constant flow of data focused on monitoring the patient. A new command center could incorporate all operations onto a "patient experience center" with all patient experience defining functions in one place. This would bring the technological and human elements closer together in one, singular environment.

Transforming the Command Center

The command centers of today have the potential to be transformed into an “intelligence center” where all aspects of patient care — experience, operations and technology — exist together and interact in concert. In contrast, most current command centers simply focus on using technology to improve capacity and efficiency. This includes patient tracking, bed availability, emergency department flow, and reducing patient wait times.

If the command center was to be reimagined, designers would be charged with the human aspects of the patient and family experience. They must consider clinical and safety coordination that will place the patient experience as the driver of health care improvement.

This sort of command center would also explore consolidating clinical coordination and remove the need to place care team spaces in each department. While this is a fairly straight forward idea in concept, a hospital command center like this would utilize technology to provide a better patient experience, and enable new technologies to flourish – all from one centralized location.

What do you think? Would you be interested in taking this approach with your hospital's command center?