The innovative work to design the new University Hospital Monklands reached an international audience this week.
Monklands Replacement Project (MRP) team members were at a prestigious European healthcare conference to showcase their “repeatable rooms” strategy.
Reflecting the theme of innovation that’s at the core of the current Transformation and Reform phase of Operation FLOW, they revealed how repeating the design of rooms and spaces can enhance safety, maximise capacity and optimise the efficiency of the services we provide.
Speaking at the European Healthcare Design Congress in London, the team gave a fascinating, futuristic presentation on “An adaptive strategy for future healthcare delivery”.
MRP Director Graeme Reid and Suzanne Tighe, from MRP architects Keppie Design, were joined on stage by MRP Redesign Lead Donna McHenry.
Donna said: “It was a real honour to be asked to participate in such a high-profile event.
“We outlined how our blueprint for care – the forward-looking ‘clinical model’ – was developed by agreeing the clinical requirements first, followed by the operational response and finally the building design.
“As we focused on our ability to treat and care for patients without multiple transfers to different departments, several improvements to clinical pathways and new ways of working emerged.
“This includes the ‘MRP Repeatable Room Process’ – duplicating the design of hospital areas to maximise the efficiency of how they’re built and then used.
“Our outpatient department is a good example of this. Repeating flows and adjacencies in ward design not only improves safety in relation to the staff being familiar with the layout, but also maximises flexibility as services change over time.
“The NHS in Scotland is under pressure to treat and care for new patients, but also to respond to the significant backlog resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we need to look at fresh ways of working and implement new models of care, the repeatable room process is a vital innovation. It drives component design from the ground up by exploiting repeatability for proportion, layout, material selection, ergonomics, data, and engineering.”
Visit www.monklands.org for more information on plans for the new University Hospital Monklands at Wester Moffat, Airdrie, which has the ambition to be Scotland’s first hospital to be fully digital and net zero carbon.
