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The Center for Health Design (CHD) has built its foundation firmly on the platform that healthcare construction projects utilizing credible evidence in the design decision-making process yield safer healing environments and that these environments best support the functional performance of caregivers and all who work there.
This concept is embraced within the healthcare design and construction industry and is often included in the selection criteria used to determine the best design team for a building project. Yet, if you ask 10 people to define evidence-based design, you likely will receive 10 different answers.
While the industry as a whole subscribes to the concept of evidence-based design, individuals often hesitate when it comes time for implementation. There is great uncertainty associated with identifying relevant, credible evidence; crafting a hypothesis with an intended outcome; gathering data-both during the project and postoccupancy-that will support or dispute the hypothesis; and how and where to publish findings for future project teams to reference as credible evidence.
In 2005, CHD received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop an Evidence-Based Design Assessment and Certification (EDAC) program. At the HEALTHCARE DESIGN.05 conference, CHD held a workshop to introduce the EDAC program and invited interested workshop attendees to be part of the effort to create the program. This colossal task included defining the field of evidence-based design, establishing standards, building educational courses, and crafting an accreditation examination. From that initial workshop, more than 100 healthcare experts from across the country agreed to volunteer their time and began to develop EDAC. The efforts of these volunteers over the first year established the foundation upon which the program would be built.
The program is based on a two-phase model: Phase 1 (current) is the accreditation of individuals, and phase 2 (future) is the certification of projects. EDAC will educate every professional who participates in a healthcare building project on the procedure of incorporating credible evidence into design decisions. It's a process, a set of behaviors that need to be integrated by each member of the project team. The EDAC program also...