The Business Case for Evidence-Based Design in Radiology Departments

Large sums of money are being spent on new construction and remodeling of radiology workspaces, with often disappointing results. Poorly designed radiology environments can contribute to medical error, safety risks to patients and staff, costly inefficiency, and avoidable stress to families and health care workers. Evidence-based design seeks to apply hypothesis-driven, literature-based methodology to the process of creating medical environments that make it easier, not harder, to provide safe and high-quality care to patients. Radiology environments are particularly challenging because of the intimidating size of imaging equipment, the complexity of imaging procedures, and the multiple medical disciplines that often need to work together in shared spaces to provide that care. Evidence-based design projects are currently relatively sparse in the literature. This article provides radiologists and radiology administrators with an introduction to the principles and practice of evidence-based design and a review of the evidence-based design literature specific to radiology workspaces and practice.