Hospital Ward Design

Implications for Space and Privacy

Chaham Alalouch

1- Aims & Objectives: 2- Patients’

Patients’ Preferences:
To investigate the relationship between measures Subjective judgements Plan
of the plan configuration of multi-bed wards, and
subjective judgements on spatial locations for configuration

Assessed by

Measured by
privacy; and to evaluate the awareness of the
designers of the importance of patients’ privacy in
hospital wards.
Questionnaire Space Syntax (VGA)

Pattern of Quantification
Preference Of Spaces

Statistical
Analysis

4- Architects’
Architects’ Priorities - Conjoint Analysis :
3- Inside Expert minds:
Policy Review: 128 design criterion. Reasonable
CBC mimics what architects do in a design task.
awareness of the importance of patient’s privacy.
Measures the Relative Importance of a design
criterion.

A Hierarchy of Ward Design Criteria:
Criteria design CBC Relative Importance Segmentation
Analysis
criteria were filtered against 4 aspects (hospital View to outside 18.0%

architecture, ward design, ward spatial Nurses Observation 16.2%

arrangements, privacy and visual privacy) Using DQI Access to sanitary facility 15.2%

structure. Infection control 11.7%

Experts’
Experts’ Views: 10 design criteria were seen as

Experts Patients' privacy 10.7%

Control over the

8.3%

important by experts in ward design: environment

Staff Travel distances 7.4%

-Patients’ privacy -Social Space Social space 5.8%

-Infection control -Nurses observation Finishing and surfaces 3.8%

-View to outside -Access to sanitary facility Flexibility on the ward

level
2.9%

-Finishing & surfaces -Short travel distances 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12%

Relative Im portance
14% 16% 18% 20%

-Control over the environment -Flexibility on the ward level

5-Main Conclusions:

There is a clear systematic relationship between the plan configuration of open wards and patients’ privacy preferences.

Integration and Control were found to underpin people’s choices for locational preferences for privacy, with Integration
being the strongest predictor of preferred and non-preferred locations.

Previous experience of hospitals was found to be associated with significant differences on spatial location for privacy,
whereas a universal preference was found across culture, age and gender.

In spite of the frequent emphasis on patient’s privacy, the current guidelines in ward design do not seem to improve
architects’ awareness of the importance of this particular design criterion. This may be related to the absence of a
framework that is based on adopting a spatial design.

6-Publications:

C. Alalouch, P. Aspinall. (2007). Spatial attributes of hospital multi-bed wards and preferences for privacy. Facilities 25:9/10, 345-
362.

C. Alalouch, P. Aspinall, H. Smith. (2008). On locational preferences for privacy in hospital wards. Facilities, in press (Accepted
08/08).