THE HOSPITAL OF THE FUTURE

Members of our team at work recently participated in a healthcare design competition to come up with a design concept for the hospital of the future. Our team approached the project with an eye, ear and passion for current and up and coming issues such as reimbursement reductions, outpatient services, mental health, retail healthcare, and burnout. We focused on the rising topic of burnout and our premise was “how can we create a happy hospital where not only patient care is considered, but provider care becomes a priority”. We were not shortlisted. Our project wasn’t innovative enough, was some of the feedback we received. There were over forty submittals and only two were picked as finalists.

So what is innovative? What is healthcare of the future? One of the winning proposals seemed to approach the competition with the premise of a moveable unit and seemed to ask the question, "What if the hospital didn’t exist at all?"

That got me thinking. If there is no hospital, then what? The use of our hand held devices to monitor data and vitals, the use of our tablets, to have online appointments with our care giver, and the use of drones to deploy medicine and other medical supplies are possibilities that are already happening. Personally, as a working professional, I don’t have the time to go to the doctor, so I try to do most of it online. When my daughter is sick, I google her symptoms and call the doctor instead of just gong in. But what else? What is an innovative idea for a healthcare experience that is futuristic?

What about a system of mobile units that can be deployed to various points dependent on the service needed. A mobile operating unit, a mobile radiology unit such as MRI, CT scanners. Or a mobile emergency unit that can be deployed to your location in the event of an emergency? A mobile birthing center so you can stay really close to home when you are having a child, or a mobile oncology treatment center? Could these mobile units be shaped similar to shipping containers so that they can be CATEGORIZED, stored and stacked one or several locations till on such unit is needed.

What would this look like and would it work? How do you keep the mobile units clean and sanitized and prepped? How would we provide the care giver(s) that would go with the units? Is it even feasible in a community of half a million or larger - could enough units be provided to serve everyone? If anything, by using this type of system, we could be forced as a society to rethink the number of procedures we think we need. We might be more sensitive to waste, and we might only use the service in the case of priority instead of whenever we feel like it.

And then what will we do with all the “empty” and abandoned hospital buildings and infrastructure that we would ultimately have in the event the we go mobile?

Fascinating question. I suspect a hospital of the future will end up being a hospital of today... just 20 or 30 or 50 years from now. We will evolve, and learn and grow from past experiences and hopefully let the lessons learned influence our today, and ultimately guide decisions for tomorrow as it relates to a healthcare experience of the future.