Publisher:
Asclepion Publishing, LLC

Healthcare design has begun its journey toward demonstrated efficacy. Evidence-based design has taken hold, and practitioners seek to base their decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes. However, systematic evaluation of the effects of these decisions has been lacking, leaving questions regarding their impact and undermining the validity of future recommendations.

Authored by Mardelle Shepley, Director of the Center for Health Systems & Design and holder of the William M. Peña Endowed Professorship at Texas A&M University, with commentaries from many health design luminaries, Health Facility Evaluation for Design Practitioners is the definitive resource for understanding, planning, conducting, and sharing pre-and post-occupancy evaluations of health facilities.

Part I, Evaluation in Context, defines terms associated with the facility evaluation process, summarizes the approaches of some of the most prolific experts in the field, and sketches the evolution of building evaluation by offering examples and precedents. It goes on to tackle the integration of evaluation research into private practice, citing benefits and exploring impediments. Part I concludes with the business case for facility evaluation.

Part II, Evaluation in Action, deliberately follows the structure of a research paper, “showing while telling” how research is done. It takes readers step by step through the evaluation process, beginning with how to conduct and summarize a literature review, then continuing with how to develop an evaluation hypothesis, how to develop and describe a methodology, how to work with an IRB, how to analyze and summarize results, and how to interpret, discuss, and disseminate results. A chapter on obtaining funding is
also included.

The book concludes by examining current trends and the future of practitioner-focused facility evaluation (PFE). The appendices offer hands-on tools in the form of a sample literature review, a template for a PFE survey, and a glossary of research terms.

This well-researched yet accessible text advances the goals of evidence-based design by finally giving practitioners everything they need to conduct design research and enrich the knowledge base of health design.