Outpatient Care COVID-19 Planning & Design Report

As our community plans to emerge from the current COVID-19 crisis, we have a rare opportunity to review current challenges and apply innovative thinking to design solutions that will help each other cope with future threats to our healthcare providers. Medical experts agree that once a new and harmful virus is isolated, it could take up to 24 months before effective therapies are available. A pandemic causing disease is something that we may likely see again in the future. The time to strategize future forward solutions for our healthcare systems to best address these challenges is now.

Just as the tragic events of 9/11 transformed the design and operations surrounding airport security, we too must look for ways to re-imagine how we design healthcare spaces that continue to foster safety, promote health and wellbeing, and improve patient outcomes. We envision a new paradigm where the CDC or USPHS institutes a national color-coded threat advisory scale like that of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002.