Trade-offs in Evidence Based Design: 'the Patient Door Debate'.

The door between the semi-public corridor and the single-occupancy patient room of a newly built University Medical Centre in the Netherlands has been heavily debated during its Evidence Based Design (EBD) and experience-informed design. It was also heavily debated since the wards came into use in 2018. It is well known that, regarding door design, a trade-off has to be made between aspects such as privacy, visibility, and safety.

Nurses' perceptions of the transition to 100% single-occupancy patient rooms in a university hospital in the Netherlands: an uncontrolled before and after study.

Background: To improve patients' privacy, comfort and infection control, newly built hospitals increasingly offer 100% single-occupancy patient rooms. Our study examines how nurses perceived the transition from a hospital with multi-bedded patient rooms to one with solely single-occupancy patient rooms designed according to principles of a healing environment.

Methods: In a single-centre, before-after survey study, nurses completed a questionnaire of 21 items in three domains: perceived patient safety and monitoring, nurses' working conditions and patient environment.

Perspectives on Assessing the Flexibility of Hospitals for Crisis Mode Operations: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Netherlands.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic placed healthcare design at the heart of the crisis. Hospitals faced challenges such as rapidly increasing their intensive care unit capacity, enabling physical distancing measures, quickly converting to telehealth and telework practices, and above all, keeping patients and staff safe. Improving flexibility in hospital facility design and adaptability of hospital operations to function in "crisis mode" can be seen as ways of future-proofing for pandemics.

Hospitalized Patients' Sleep Quality Compared Between Multioccupancy Rooms and Single-Patient Rooms.

Objectives: To evaluate patients' sleep quality in a former hospital with two-and four-bedded rooms compared to a new hospital that incorporated evidence-based design features, including exclusively single-patient rooms (SPRs).

Background: Hospitalized patients often report poor sleep quality due to both patient-related factors and hospital environmental factors. It is unclear if staying in an SPR in a hospital designed as a healing environment is associated with better sleep quality.

Impact of sink design on bacterial transmission from hospital sink drains to the surrounding sink environment tested using a fluorescent marker.

In hospitals, sinks act as reservoirs for bacterial pathogens. To assess the extent of splashing, fluorescein dye was added to four hospital sinks previously involved in pathogen dispersal to the environment and/or transmission to patients, and one sink that was not. Applying dye to the p-trap or tailpiece did not result in any fluorescent droplets outside of the drain.

Clinic Time Required for Remote and In-Person Management of Patients With Cardiac Devices: Time and Motion Workflow Evaluation.

Background: The number of patients with cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) is increasing, creating a substantial workload for device clinics.

Objective: This study aims to characterize the workflow and quantify clinic staff time requirements for managing patients with CIEDs.

Methods: A time and motion workflow evaluation was performed in 11 US and European CIEDs clinics.

Effects of Newly Designed Hospital Buildings on Staff Perceptions: A Pre-Post Study to Validate Design Decisions.

Objective: This study investigates effects of the newly built nonpatient-related buildings of a large university medical center on staff perceptions and whether the design objectives were achieved.

Background: The medical center is gradually renewing its hospital building area of 200,000 m.(2) This redevelopment is carefully planned and because lessons learned can guide design decisions of the next phase, the medical center is keen to evaluate the performance of the new buildings.

Catch, bycatch and discards of the Galapagos Marine Reserve small-scale handline fishery.

Fisheries bycatch is a significant marine conservation issue as valuable fish are wasted and protected species harmed with potential negative ecological and socio-economic consequences. Even though there are indications that the small-scale handline fishery of the Galapagos Marine Reserve has a low selectivity, information on its bycatch has never been published. We used onboard monitoring and interview data to assess the bycatch of the Galapagos handline fishery by estimating the bycatch ratio, determining species compositions of landings and bycatch, identifying fishers' reasons for discarding certain individuals, and revealing historical trends in the bycatch ratio.

Relationship of paroxysmal atrial tachyarrhythmias to volume overload: assessment by implanted transpulmonary impedance monitoring.

Background: Clinical experience suggests that atrial tachyarrhythmias (ATs) are a frequent comorbidity in heart failure patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction and that volume overload may increase AT susceptibility. However, substantiating this apparent relationship in free-living patients is difficult. Recently, certain implantable cardioverter-defibrillators provide, by measuring transpulmonary electric bioimpedance, an index of intrathoracic fluid status (OptiVol index [OI]).