ABSTRACT
The demands on clinical and administrative leadership requires maintaining an open mind to new ideas, patience and time to explore options, and the willingness to take risks. A dilemma in creating architectural plans is that major strategic decisions are required early in the design process. Establishing the number and mix of treatment space types can present a challenge for the department and the institution. Identifying the target requires consensus on future volumes, new operational models, key metric performance, capital budgets, and regulatory requirements. Establishing target patient lengths of stay in the department can present a conundrum for assessing the impact of new lean operational policies in the department. Many of the tools and analytical techniques used to evaluate staffing and operational models can be used to determine the number of treatment spaces. Planning team should use methods to calculate bed needs that are sensitive to the variable of arrival patterns and service times.
