GIM Symposium 2011
Complex Care Forum: Enabling interprofessional team for health system transformation

Patrick Spear, MArch, BScH
Intern Architect, Farrow Partnership Architects

The processes of medical care are very slow to change- after all, there is a lot of risk involved in modifying systems that which are already known to be effective.  As a result, new technologies take a long time to be fully integrated into the medical landscape.

The Futureward project was undertaken with that belief anticipatory design exercises are crucial in minimizing the hesitative effects of this very necessary caution.  Novel technologies such as robotics, room-sized displays, and artificial intelligence might be expensive and inaccessible right now, but the rapid pace of technological innovation will put them in our hands sooner than expected.  When that happens, we should already know how to properly build medical spaces so as to best take advantage of them.

The presentation at the 2011 GIM symposium will discuss in depth exactly how such design exercises might be conducted and will walk through the Futureward redesign of a critical care facility.