ABSTRACT
As the healthcare industry changed, a new configuration called “On Stage/Off Stage” or the “Patient-Oriented Delivery” (POD) arrangement was developed. The PODs involve teamwork areas and collaboration spaces that promote communication. Some of the many benefits to the PODs are much smaller travel distances for the healthcare employees; patients get a more personalized and intimate feeling during their care, and the open “bullpen” allows for efficient workflow and more flexible examination rooms. Also, in many large hospitals and medical office buildings, numerous PODs exist side by side to create clinics within a clinic. All rooms for all physicians and all beds for any patients—medicine or surgery. This is the new concept of healthcare—a unified unit or clinic for all, with nurses and physicians interchanging the rooms according to the type of patients.
