Current Trends in Healthcare Facility Design

Rationale: Design programs springing from the conviction that familiar environments are less stressful than unfamiliar ones, thereby promoting healing.
Marketing Sense: Hospitals leverage elements of hotel and home aesthetics to retain medical consumers who might otherwise opt for competitor facilities or home care.
Certification: As of October 2009, a specific firm became one of only five nationally (and the sole one in the Southeast) to be certified as a charter member of the Visionary Design Network.
Criticisms and Objections:
- Material Durability: Materials and finishes suitable for hotels and homes often do not withstand the heavy-duty usage typical of a hospital setting.
- Tax Status Jeopardy: Nonprofit hospitals that outsourced upgraded food services (from fast food to gourmet dinners) sometimes jeopardized their nonprofit tax status.
- Philosophical Objection (Henry Stolzman, 1993, Aesclepius): Objected to