Instead of the traditional “racetrack” design (long hallways with a central nursing station on each floor), when the hospital added the new building a circular “pod” system was designed. The whole idea was to cut down the walking time of the hospital’s most precious scarce resource: nurses. The average nurse (about 45 years old) was hiking 2.7 miles a day up and down the hallways to the central station.
The layout design process lasted over a year. Over 1,000 meetings of doctors, nurses, and patients turned into drawings and then into “test” layouts. The hospital rented a warehouse a mile away and created full-sized mockups of every type of room. When we toured, we were encouraged to comment on every aspect of the layout, from placement of electrical outlets, to pictures on the walls, to Murphy beds for guests, to bathrooms.
The result was a roundish building with central nursing pods for each cluster of 34 rooms (this is shown in Figure 9.22 in the book). What a change in walking time for nurses: a 20% drop with the new layout!
Nothing is perfect, though. Despite all the thoughtful planning, analysis, and mockups, the last time I visited the new building I found nurses still unhappy about the “local station” pods. They had to go back and forth to the “central station” too frequently because everything needed was not at the local pods near the patient rooms. Layout is indeed part art, part science.