Hospital Build looks to a future full of light

The hospital of the future is light-flooded, surrounded by a garden and water, and designed in a way that promotes treatment processes and can also quickly adapt to new technologies. This is the scenario that was suggested by hospital managers, architects and planners at Hospital Build Europe, Europe’s leading trade fair for hospital construction and hospital infrastructure, which was held from 24-26 April 2012 in Berlin.

A total of 2,400 visitors from Europe, China, India, Israel, South Korea and Russia collected information about new products and solutions from the furnishing of care units and operation rooms, to energy management and facility management, and through to process optimisation. International experts discussed their experiences and projects in five accompanying convention series.

The Cardiac Centre of the University Hospital of Cologne demonstrated what a modern hospital can look like today: plenty of glass, bright rooms and lots of green characterise the new building, which was completed in 2007. ‘We wanted to move away from the decentralised character and the historically developed scattered locations of our clinical centre,’ said Jens Rauber from medfacilities, the University Hospital’s Construction Service company.

The feel-good factor also inspired the product developers of the electronics corporation Philips. At Hospital Build Europe the company presented a new lighting concept with ‘HealWell’, which is based on three pillars. Kim-Van Ho, hospital and health segment marketing manager, explained: ‘On the one hand, it is functional – that is to say, it provides optimum lighting in which the hospital specialists can work properly.’

She added that what makes it really special, however, is a feature which allows the patients to choose the light setting themselves that they find most pleasant. ‘This is also valuable from a psychological point of view, as we thus strengthen the patients’ self-confidence: even though they may be forced to be lying down for a long time, they feel that they can control part of their surroundings.

Another successful project was presented by Yossi Bahagon: examining the issue of how to achieve better healthcare, the e-health expert of Israel’s healthcare company Clalit Health Services has discovered the patient as the most important resource. He has developed a digital platform which provides patients with personalised health data. More than a million and a half people use the programme each month, and the platform records more than 2.4 million interactions during the same period.

‘Specifically chronically ill patients are involved in the treatment process and encouraged more to undergo pre- and post-care,” commented Mr Bahagon. The e-health system is also worthwhile from a financial point of view: Mr Bahagon said his company has achieved a return on investment of 415 per cent. 

For more information go to http://www.presse-galerien.de/index_ff.asp?PID=753&GID=841