????奎克稱，吸引他加入這個項目的是現代醫療史上首次出現的理念，即一隊設計師認真接受挑戰，將技術和建筑整合到一個無縫環境中，而不是將一些已有的醫療技術重新用于現有空間中。他說：“其他時候我總能聽到人們這么說，‘這就是未來的病房嗎，好像沒什么新鮮的地方啊’。而現在這個項目確實實現了飛躍，它將技術和建筑整合了起來，還將病房里所有常見的活動都納入到了設計之中?！?/p>

????“2020病房”確實是各種技術、材料和即插即用功能高度整合的杰作，它既包含了一般病房常見的各種技術，又有各種旨在提高病人舒適度或醫護人員工作效率的全新技術。比如，所謂的“病人環帶”（patient ribbon）就從床頭墻到天花板再到床尾墻把病床一路圍繞了起來。床頭墻中埋設了監測生命體征的儀器，還有氧氣罐及其他必需的設備。病床上方的面板含有由病人控制的照明設施。床尾墻上裝了一個顯示器，它能用于和醫生進行視頻咨詢，調看醫院信息，還可以觀賞娛樂節目（所有這些功能都通過一臺平板電腦在病床上控制）。護理技術則包括一個洗手臺，用于追蹤儀器設備的內置無線射頻識別（RFID）技術，以及用于降低醫源性感染風險的仿紫外線消毒臺。

????這些技術是由大大小小的二十多家公司提供的——歐司朗公司（Osram Sylvania）提供了一些照明設備，面料生產商美利肯公司(Milliken)提供了用于床單和抹布的定制抗菌面料，金霸王公司(Duracell)捐助了充電技術——而房間大量應用的是杜邦公司（DuPont）的可麗耐。它是一種無孔表面材料，設計團隊之所以選它，是因為它便于清潔，而且可熱成型，這就使房間里很少會有可供病菌繁殖的縫隙或接口。總的來看，“2020病房”的設計旨在解決當今醫療系統的一些突出問題：病人無法參與自己的治療，醫源性感染，醫護人員效率低下，以及病人總體舒適度差。而這些問題會影響康復，同時讓病房的環境更令人難受。

????惠特曼稱，這就是為什么“2020病房”不是純粹為了技術而打造的。所有要素都精心選擇，合理配置，目的就是要讓病人更好地參與治療進程，同時提高醫護人員的工作績效和效率。這是一種系統方法——它早已在其他眾多行業中用于提高效率了，但在基礎醫護領域卻始終嚴重缺位，導致這個領域還停留在經常用筆和寫字板來零敲碎打完成任務的水平上?；萏芈€表示，最重要的是，這是能影響行為和產出的設計。當前醫療領域中的固定成本和其他效率低下的現象常常超出個別醫院的掌控范圍，而通過設計提高的人員績效能讓醫院管理者獲得一個削減成本、同時提高護理水平的獨特工具。

????What drew him to the project, Quirk says, was the idea that for the first time in the history of modern health care, a team of designers was being seriously challenged to integrate technology and architecture into a seamless environment rather than retrofit a handful of pre-existing health care technologies into a pre-existing space. "Every other time I've heard, 'This is the patient room of the future, there's nothing new about it," Quirk says. "This project really took a leap of faith in integrating technology and architecture and really incorporating all of the activities that will typically go on in a patient room into the design."

????Patient Room 2020 is indeed a highly integrated orchestration of technologies, materials, and plug-and-play capabilities, encompassing the customary technologies one would expect to find in a hospital room as well as wholly new ones aimed at enhancing patient comfort and care or caregiver efficiency. For instance, the so-called patient ribbon wraps all the way around the bed, from headwall to ceiling to footwall. The headwall contains the necessary machinery for capturing vital signs as well as any oxygen tanks or other hardware that might be necessary. The overhead panel contains patient-controlled lighting, while the footwall contains a display that can be used for everything from video-consulting with doctors to pulling up hospital information to viewing entertainment (all controlled from the bed via tablet computer). Caregiver tech in the room includes a hand-washing station, built-in RFID tech for tracking instruments, and simulated UV sanitation of workstations to cut down on the risk of hospital-acquired infection.

????The underlying technologies were provided by more than two dozen companies large and small -- Osram Sylvania provided some of the lighting, fabrics-maker Milliken customized antibacterial textiles for linens and scrubs, Duracell chipped in charging technology -- and largely packaged up in DuPont's (DD) Corian, a non-porous surface material selected by the design team for its ease of cleaning and the fact that it is thermoformable, leaving few seams or joints where bacteria might thrive. Taken altogether, Patient Room 2020 is designed to address some glaring shortcomings rife in the health care system today: a lack of patient engagement in his or her own treatment, hospital-acquired infections, caregiver inefficiency, and overall patient discomfort, which can distract from rehabilitation and generally can make hospital rooms miserable environments.

????That's why Patient Room 2020 isn't just technology for technology's sake, Whitman says. Each element was chosen for a reason and placed in the right location to enhance both patient engagement and caregiver performance and efficiency. It's a systems approach -- something that has long been employed to boost efficiency in other industries but has been sorely lacking in basic patient care, where things are often still done piecemeal with pen and clipboard. Most importantly, it's design influencing behaviors and outcomes, Whitman says, and in a health care environment where fixed costs and other inefficiencies are often beyond an individual hospital's control, enhanced human performance through design gives administrators a unique tool for cutting costs and improving care.