Post-Occupancy Evaluation: Swedish Medical Center Ballard Behavioral Health Unit

Post-Occupancy Evaluation: Swedish Medical Center Ballard Behavioral Health Unit

June 20, 2018

As we embarked on our work for Swedish Medical Center Ballard’s Behavioral Health Unit in Seattle, our client’s primary drivers were to promote patient healing and safety, while providing a safe and calming work environment for staff.

To assess the performance outcomes of the new space and investigate how the physical environment affects the staff, patient and family experience after a full year of operations, ZGF conducted a post-occupancy evaluation – that included surveying 18 behavioral-health unit providers – to benchmark the new facility against these design objectives.

We identified statistically-significant relationships between distinct design elements and the perceived impact on patients and staff.

Click here to read the completed post-occupancy evaluation report.

Results from the analysis show that ZGF’s design decisions promote a calm patient environment, positive patient-care experiences, and a sense of safety.

  • Engaging colors and textures in the communal spaces are perceived as soothing and link positive patient experiences directly to the project’s design intent.
  • Circadian lighting regulates calming.
  • Provider perceptions of physical safety were highly correlated with a reception desk at the main staff workspace area. Custom-milled and built from Corian, its unique shape and textural edges emulate an art feature. The desk doubles as a potential barrier between patients and staff when needed.
  • Additional acoustic insulation—a relatively inexpensive solution—could improve the effectiveness of the rooms.

In August 2017, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory published a report examining the performance of LED lighting in the BHU. The study is a first-of-its-kind exploration of a color-tunable lighting system commissioned as part of a large-scale renovation project.

Co-authored by ZGF, the study demonstrates that circadian lighting controls and luminaries can be designed, specified, commissioned, and validated with a spectrometer to match known circadian lighting metrics throughout the day—and from different patient vantage points.