Healthcare architecture for health and well-being From hospital to neighbourhood care (PROARCH)

Other, 2015

Background: PROARCH will study how, and in what way, healthcare architecture can influence health-promotion. An understudied but highlighted e.g. by the International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH), initiated by the World Health Organization's (WHO). Health-promotion has been defined as the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants (WHO, 2005). Although resources have been allocated to prevent illness, such as health information and support for behavioural risk factors (Wilson, 2015), healthcare tends to primarily focus on treating diseases when they occur (Wilson, 2011). More up-stream and proactive solutions are wanted i.e. Identifying people at risk of illness and built in health-promotion in all policy interventions (Wilson, 2015). Aim: The overall aim is to explore how healthcare architecture can contribute to health and well-being in an outpatient healthcare context. The research-questions are: How can health-promoting architecture be defined and measured? How can new healthcare environments support health and well-being in the neighbourhood? A further aim is to identify the key factors of the architecture and how they interact with contextual factors in order to increase the understanding of how and what supports health promoting. Methods: PROARCH has started with a systematic review on how health-promotion architecture can be defined and measured. Further on, a full-scale study of Angered Nearby hospital in Sweden (finished 2015) is planned. Angered, outside of Gothenburg, is a part of the Swedish Million Programs with a weak socio-economic status. Data collection corresponds to mixed methods, with clinical outcomes and interviews, in addition to process and outcome data from non-participant observations and semi-structured interviews. The findings will be compared to the design intentions, developed in the planning process of the Angered Nearby hospital. The results will be used in a design project in which we will conduct experience based co-design in Angered.