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Dyson is a household name most associated with bagless vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and commercial warm air hand dryers, but on the back of his company’s success, billionaire industrialist and inventor James Dyson has set up a foundation that aims to inspire the next generation of engineers and fund medical and scientific research
Dyson is fulfilling the foundation’s mission by helping some of the smallest and most vulnerable engineers-to be – premature babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Royal United Hospitals Bath, UK. But unlike employees in offices, it is hard to get direct feedback from those in their first precarious weeks of life. Yet that didn’t stop researchers and designers, in partnership with clinicians and parents, from capturing as much data as they could.
The award-winning Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care opened its doors in July 2011, but the planning started long before. Architects and engineers met extensively with hospital staff as well as parent groups to understand the real challenges their design could solve. The project was architecture firm FCBStudios’ first foray into healthcare design, and the feedback was part of their research-led approach, with the designers perhaps benefiting from having no preconceived ideas of what healthcare architecture should be.
Careful thought was given to the journey patients would take through the space, which manifests in a clockwise flow of rooms that start with intensive care and transition to recovery rooms at the end, giving those on the journey the motivational sense of making step-by-step progress towards a healthy discharge, something parents indicated is important for them psychologically. The staff hub is at the centre of those rooms, meaning they are always close to those in their care as well as the anxious parents who accompany the tiny patients.
The rooms themselves are flooded with natural light via large windows to ensure the babies are exposed to day and night to help set their circadian rhythm, which is important for sleep and wake cycles. Blackout blinds are used in the summer months to help promote those good sleep patterns. It was also the first tertiary UK healthcare building to be constructed in solid laminated timber with exposed surfaces, which provides a biophilic contrast to the stark Medical equipment is also in the background whenever possible rather than front and centre.
One of the findings from the research revealed that when a baby moved and disturbed a monitor they were wearing, an alert on the monitoring device sounded, causing parents to worry unnecessarily. Simple changes to where these alert signals were directed and monitored resolved that issue.
In many circumstances after a change in one’s experience, you’d ask the person who experienced the change to give feedback on the process. When the patient can’t articulate that, you have to get creative.
To monitor the impact the new space was having, a small accelerometer (essentially very sophisticated movement sensors) that could be mounted to a baby’s nappy was developed to measure the patients’ breathing, restlessness and sleep patterns.
And the results showed the changes made a big impact. Babies in the new unit slept on average 22% longer than in the previous unit. 90% of babies assessed who left the new unit were breastfeeding, compared to 64% in the previous unit. Sensors were also used to track where staff were, and they showed that staff in the new unit spent 20% more of their time in the patients’ rooms, caring for the babies. Sensors tracking light and sound also found marked improvements – those large windows in the new space let in up to 50% more natural light than before, and noise levels were 9 decibels lower on average than in the previous unit.
“We collated vast amounts of data using new techniques to build up a really accurate picture of how babies respond to their environment. We found that the design of the building led to better fed and better rested babies, contributing to their recuperation.” – Dr Bernie Marden, Medical Director at RUH.
Research showed that parental anxiety in the old unit increased over time, whereas in the new unit the opposite is true. Parents reported feeling less cramped, having a greater sense of privacy, noticing less interference from noise and light and being more actively involved in their baby’s care in the new unit through greater physical contact.
As of the 10th anniversary of the new space opening, the Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care had cared for more than 5,000 babies and struck a beautiful balance between an exceptionally effective workplace and a lifeline for the most vulnerable among us. And the positive impact was felt beyond just the patients and families – the design features were also reported to positively impact staff morale and working conditions. Given the success of the Bath NICU, the James Dyson Foundation went on to donate £4 million towards a pioneering new Cancer Centre at the hospital.
This is data-informed design. It required close observational analysis, the study of patient records, and the measurement of light levels, sound levels and sensors capturing staff movements. So, while subjective employee and patient (or parents of patients in this case) feedback was highly important, the combination of that with objective data built a far fuller picture, forming the foundation for user-centred design thinking.
This user-centred approach is at the heart of the design excellence work Aéto is helping clients with. Places ultimately are designed for people, so we use data and evidence to make positive interventions at the design stage that ensure places work for people. Just like FCBStudios’ showed with the Dyson NICU, a relatively small investment can yield life-changing results.