--- title: Hospitals Should Be Redesigned to Improve Care description: Danish Kurani explores three ways hospitals can be redesigned to benefit both patients and doctors. canonical: https://time.com/6342279/hospitals-redesign-improve-care-essay/ author: Danish Kurani article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-12-05T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:42.639Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Hospitals Should Be Redesigned to Improve Care og:description: Danish Kurani explores three ways hospitals can be redesigned to benefit both patients and doctors. og:url: https://time.com/6342279/hospitals-redesign-improve-care-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8f3c5d3b3c06acb/698a42e8d075330980e6ea40/hospital-redesign-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: hospital-redesign-2023 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hospitals Should Be Redesigned to Improve Care twitter:description: Danish Kurani explores three ways hospitals can be redesigned to benefit both patients and doctors. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8f3c5d3b3c06acb/698a42e8d075330980e6ea40/hospital-redesign-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hospitals Should Be Redesigned to Improve Care > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=be5cb68c-0054-47bc-ae50-7590f8a84cb7&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Apologizes In Front of COVID-19 Inquiry Panel [Watch (HLS stream): Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Apologizes In Front of COVID-19 Inquiry Panel](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TWdGwYtD.m3u8) (4:43)  _Published 2023-12-06. The U.K’s COVID-19 Inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic picked up again on Wednesday morning. The hearings for the initial stage of the investigation were heard in London in June. Today, former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who served as the nation’s leader from 2019 to 2022, was sworn in to give evidence in front of the panel. Shortly into his opening statement, he said that he was sorry for the suffering experienced by COVID victims and their families._ by [Danish Kurani](https://time.com/author/danish-kurani/) ## Danish Kurani Dec 5, 2023 12:00 PM UTC  Modern Hospital Room with Ventilator System in Intensive Care Unit in Covid pandemic situation Modern Hospital Room with Ventilator System in Intensive Care Unit in Covid pandemic situation Getty Images by [Danish Kurani](https://time.com/author/danish-kurani/) ## Danish Kurani Dec 5, 2023 12:00 PM UTC Hospitals are such important places in our lives. It's where we are born, where we go for help when we’re not well, and where we turn to when cancer, a heart attack, or major injury leaves us hanging by a thread. It’s also where our loved ones spend their time anxiously waiting for us to get better, to hear good or bad news. So then, why are hospitals such miserable places? Most hospitals are so poorly designed, you feel their negative effects the moment you walk through the front door. The unintuitive layout immediately disorients you. The stark, cold lighting and hard surfaces create a feeling of sterility. There’s no soothing music to put you at ease, just the beeping of machines and rushing of hospital staff. It always feels like something is wrong. Like the worst is about to happen—which it sometimes does. Architects have known for decades how design can improve people’s experience. In my own work, for instance, I’ve designed a [technology lab for teenagers](https://kurani.us/code-next-oakland/) in Oakland, Calif., where 93% of them said the lab’s design made them feel like an inventor and 73% said the lab inspired them to pursue a career in STEM. Similarly, I believe we can improve the hospital experience, too—for patients and staff alike. By adjusting the acoustics, lighting, layout, colors, furniture, and view we can make hospitals places of peace and rest, not anxiety and fear. We have no excuse not to do better. From pre-operation to surgery and recovery, here are three ways hospitals can be redesigned to make life better for everyone. ### More From TIME ## **Increasing privacy and reducing noise for patients** A few years ago, I accompanied my mom to her hysterectomy operation at a prominent Atlanta hospital. Sitting beside her bed in the pre-op, I noticed several problems with the space: The room was cold enough to make you shiver. The lights were gloomy and fluorescent. Worst of all, there weren’t any walls—only a curtain so thin you can hear doctors and patients talking to your left and right. It was a cacophony of harsh sounds, and I could see that my mom was clearly not relaxed—and she is one of the calmest people I know. She could hear every nurse rushing through the halls, all the beeping from machines in the halls and those of her neighbors. How could _anyone_ relax in a place like this? From the 1960s to the early 2000s, noise levels in hospitals [more than doubled](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16419808/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1701203201098320&usg=AOvVaw1NaLRjffghB5zLh42Rdo7V), and they [continue to increase](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056361/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1701203201098470&usg=AOvVaw16q4DqienYb8oJYOct5UuU). This leads to increased patient stress. In addition, patients who are heard (or even seen) between curtains are less likely to speak openly with their doctors, which can result in misdiagnosis, [according to one study](https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644%2801%2945348-0/fulltext). Designing better acoustics in a hospital could make a big difference. That acoustic redesign could be as simple as replacing curtain dividers with solid walls. That would have other benefits, too. The same study discovered that when a patient’s room had walls versus flimsy curtains, the patient tended to be more amenable to more sensitive portions of their exams than patients who only had the privacy of a curtain. Better design leads to better communication, which leads to better care. ## **Creating a better flow in the operating room** In 2018, researchers at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina [did an in-depth study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6559781/) of what causes “flow disruptions”—essentially interruptions to a smooth, orderly procedure—in an operating room. These disruptions can cause nurses and doctors to make errors that negatively affect the outcomes of procedures. It turns out, these flow disruptions are rampant. More than 2,500 disruptions were observed over 28 surgeries—an average of 90 disruptions per surgery. Perhaps most shocking is that more than half of the disruptions were caused by the room’s layout, such as the surgeon’s view being blocked by a piece of equipment, or the entire surgical team having to pause in a critical moment because the necessary supplies were in a closet that was blocked by another piece of equipment, or in a different room entirely. Other common disruptions include operating staff bumping into one another, the anesthesiologist not having adequate space to do their work without being jostled or disturbed, and nurses not being able to see vital signs or what the doctor is doing to the patient. If this sounds scary, it is. We shouldn’t have to roll in there with a fear of things going wrong—especially when many of the potential errors are preventable. Hospitals could redesign their operating rooms in a few notable ways to minimize flow disruptions. For starters, they could adjust the shape and size of the operating room (OR). In a separate study, when Clemson and MUSC researchers [tracked the movements](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29355033/) (and collisions) inside of ORs, they discovered that there is an optimal shape and size of an OR: rectangular, longer than it is wide, and roughly 570 square feet. In this orientation, the flow of people and supplies in the room is optimized. There is less bumping into one another, and more space for everyone to play their part without it being so big that traveling to a supply cabinet takes too long. The Clemson and MUSC researchers also found that hospitals can rearrange the layout of the OR to create a smoother flow. For example, instead of the operating table being in the center of the room and on axis with the walls (which is an industry standard that’s rarely been questioned, the researchers note), there will be a smoother flow of staff if the table is positioned diagonally in the room, angling out from the top left corner. This layout creates a nice corner at the head of the table for the anesthesiologist to work without interruption. In addition, the nurses can easily get to the operating table, the nurses’ station, and the supply storage in the bottom right of the room. Lastly, ORs are visually busy. There is a lot to see, and it can be hard for nurses to find what they need. Sometimes a nurse is across the room gathering supplies or preparing equipment, and at the same time needs to know what’s going on with the patient. By hanging displays around the room that show vital signs, as well as a top-down camera (like a cooking show’s aerial camera that shows what the chef is doing), everyone in the OR, no matter where or who they are, will have the information they need. No longer will they need to rush over to the table and crowd over the patient to see it themselves. ## **Recovering with help from nature** While recovery rooms sound good in theory, most of them are actually not designed to help you recover as fast as possible. Noise is already a known factor—but we also need to make hospitals pleasing to the eye. Years after her hysterectomy, my mom had a heart attack and stroke. So, I watched again and again as the design of the hospital failed to help her in all the ways I know it can. This time, not with an assault on her ears, but on her eyes. In the 1980s, researcher Roger Ulrich [conducted an analysis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6143402/) of patient recovery times. He compared cases where a person’s room overlooked either a set of trees or a brick wall. Overwhelmingly, Ulrich found patients’ recovery was much worse when they looked at the wall than the trees. People who faced the wall required stronger forms of pain medication, and in higher doses; they received lower assessments of mood from their nurses; and they were even kept at the hospital a day longer, on average. Ulrich concluded that the design of the recovery room played a major role in how quickly patients recovered from the same procedures. Which is why it was so surprising that the recovery room my mom was given after her heart procedure faced the side of another building. When we know how healing nature can be, why do we build hospitals where some patients only see a blank wall? It would be a simple decision to make during the design process. Sometimes hospitals don’t have the luxury of being perched in a beautiful landscape. Other times, what’s around the hospital, especially in urban areas, are other buildings. In those instances, painting the neighboring buildings a natural shade of leafy green, or growing ivy and other plants up their facades, could do wonders for the patients who are staring at them. Better yet, when building new hospitals, we can position recovery rooms to face inner courtyards that are lush landscapes—not only to look at but also to walk around in. I saw these benefits firsthand. After leaving the hospital, my mom was admitted to a rehab center. I was with her when she checked in. Her room’s window didn’t look out onto other buildings—she could see grassy hills and tall pine trees. Within 30 seconds of being in the bed, she remarked how wonderful she felt and how much she enjoyed the view. Hospitals don’t have to become “happy” places. Most of what happens there is scary and anxiety-inducing. But they can be designed to work better for all of us, so that we feel supported in the most important moments of our lives. ## Transcript I thought I understand the feelings of these victims and their families and I am deeply sorry for the pain of the loss and the suffering of those victims and their families and grateful. I am to the hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers and many other public servants. Mm. people who walks of life to protect our country drive to Draper pandemic. I do hope that this inquiry will help to get the answers to the very difficult questions that we can do next time. He's alright we are asking for the avoidance of doubt and make it happen. So you can I haven't removed any walks apps from my but I'll give you everything good. I think you need we may have made mistakes. I think it. I didn't want to try to anticipate the discussion, which I'm sure we will get into about the timings of NPR's lockdowns. It inevitably we got something's wrong. I think we were doing our best to the other time when you give him the information how to find the whole time. I think we we did our level best. Well, that seems we should have done differently. Unquestionably but you know, I would I would struggle to to itemize to move before you not in in in in in in a hard Rocky take personal responsibility fee. Do you take responsibility for whatever my lady makes of the speed of the government's response in January February March of 2020 and the way in which the various moving parts of the government's the advisory committee is the Department's the agencies and so on responded. Do you take responsibility for the lockdown decisions whichever way they went and the timeliness of them? The manner in which patients were discharged from hospital into the castle actor. the explosion of the virus within the Residential Care Center the general speed at which the restrictions were released. the attack to help Heights game and then lastly in 2020 the decision not to introduce the circuit breaker in September or October what to introduce a test System earlier when the prevalence of the virus was lower for good or ill yesterday the rate of excess deaths in this country as I say, I think this is the statistics battery and I think that the every country struggled with a new plan and I think the the UK from the evidence that I have seen was well done the European table in the oldest even further down the road table if I have to answer why I think we faced particular Penguins, I would say it was Irrespective of of government action are we have a Coke and a we are in Europe that they don't help. You, see extremely well aware of the arguments that the long-term decisions and sells cheap Nativity in individually contributed to the number of excess. What do you say to that I say that I don't know but I'm aware of the documents made. What would I would say respectfully to people is that? they were very very difficult decisions and the issue of the timeliness of a blank times was clearly one that we considered. 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