Whether for a renovation project or new construction, behavioral health planning and design focus on the critical challenge of balancing patient safety with creation of a positive, nurturing environment. Issues and opportunities, challenges and solutions will be explored using real-life examples to illustrate the balancing act required to resolve these often conflicting priorities. This session will enable you to—
• Discuss, using examples given, how to maximize patient safety while creating a nurturing and supportive physical environment in both new construction and conversions of existing facilities for behavioral health use.
• Describe, using actual scenarios, the unique nature of behavioral health facilities as distinguished from other health care facilities.
• List three successful design strategies, based on a review of the case studies presented, that can be used to adapt an existing nursing unit to provide effective and efficient behavioral health care services.
• Use evaluation techniques, as presented, for assessing whether an existing nursing unit can be adapted for behavioral health patients within the budget available.