Stress within healthcare environments can be the result of uncertainty, illness, or the environment itself. In order to promote better health outcomes for dialysis users, scientific literature advocates stress reduction within healthcare environments. Dialysis patients are subject to numerous stressors, including the threat of potential losses and lifestyle change. Studies have revealed that patients who suffer from chronic illness perceive different levels of quality of life than those who are considered healthy and because of these lifestyle changes they employ various coping mechanisms when dealing with stress. There is a rising movement to mitigate stress through the use of holistic healing, an approach that addresses a person’s mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual elements to create a total healing environment. In accordance with this growing movement, the intent of this practicum is to create an outpatient centre for Manitoba’s dialysis patients that increases their perceived quality of life. The inquiry process began by questioning dialysis patients and conducting observational research at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre. Literature and precedent reviews were conducted, and the design programme was developed. The result of this research-based design proposal is an outpatient hemodialysis centre located within the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre that helps mitigate stress while patients attempt to cope with lifestyle changes. The resulting design is one that is warm, welcoming, home-like and comfortable, which is supported by the theories explained in the literature review. This environment provides a greater sense of control, creates positive distractions and allows spiritually evoking opportunities to take place for all users of this new facility. / February 2009

Stress within healthcare environments can be the result of uncertainty, illness, or the environment itself. In order to promote better health outcomes for dialysis users, scientific literature advocates stress reduction within healthcare environments. Dialysis patients are subject to numerous stressors, including the threat of potential losses and lifestyle change. Studies have revealed that patients who suffer from chronic illness perceive different levels of quality of life than those who are considered healthy and because of these lifestyle changes they employ various coping mechanisms when dealing with stress. There is a rising movement to mitigate stress through the use of holistic healing, an approach that addresses a person’s mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual elements to create a total healing environment. In accordance with this growing movement, the intent of this practicum is to create an outpatient centre for Manitoba’s dialysis patients that increases their perceived quality of life. The inquiry process began by questioning dialysis patients and conducting observational research at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre. Literature and precedent reviews were conducted, and the design programme was developed. The result of this research-based design proposal is an outpatient hemodialysis centre located within the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre that helps mitigate stress while patients attempt to cope with lifestyle changes. The resulting design is one that is warm, welcoming, home-like and comfortable, which is supported by the theories explained in the literature review. This environment provides a greater sense of control, creates positive distractions and allows spiritually evoking opportunities to take place for all users of this new facility.

Stress within healthcare environments can be the result of uncertainty, illness, or the environment itself. In order to promote better health outcomes for dialysis users, scientific literature advocates stress reduction within healthcare environments. Dialysis patients are subject to numerous stressors, including the threat of potential losses and lifestyle change. Studies have revealed that patients who suffer from chronic illness perceive different levels of quality of life than those who are considered healthy and because of these lifestyle changes they employ various coping mechanisms when dealing with stress. There is a rising movement to mitigate stress through the use of holistic healing, an approach that addresses a person’s mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual elements to create a total healing environment. In accordance with this growing movement, the intent of this practicum is to create an outpatient centre for Manitoba’s dialysis patients that increases their perceived quality of life. The inquiry process began by questioning dialysis patients and conducting observational research at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre. Literature and precedent reviews were conducted, and the design programme was developed. The result of this research-based design proposal is an outpatient hemodialysis centre located within the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre that helps mitigate stress while patients attempt to cope with lifestyle changes. The resulting design is one that is warm, welcoming, home-like and comfortable, which is supported by the theories explained in the literature review. This environment provides a greater sense of control, creates positive distractions and allows spiritually evoking opportunities to take place for all users of this new facility.

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The quality of healthcare environments has been linked to patient safety, patient and staff stress, clinical output, and patient outcome. As part of maintaining the physical environment within the healthcare settings facility managers need to ensure that complex systems are working properly. Facility management tasks need to be completed with minimal interference with clinical services. This is often difficult to do because facility information is often stored in multiple systems and may be inadequate and incomplete. Communication and exchange of information throughout the lifecycle and throughout the operational phase of the building is fragmented. Relevant information and effective facility information management are important for efficient operation and maintenance of the facility. It is even more important when systems are being constantly upgraded and renovated due to new technologies and for the need for facility managers to do more work with fewer resources. This research is examining the link between facility management and clinical activities, especially in terms of information exchange and management. A framework is proposed to help facility managers more efficiently manage healthcare facility information. Case analysis was completed on facility related patient safety events to determine the types of information needed and exchanged through the event's response by facility personnel. The information was then organized into a product model and ontology to help capture, manage, and retrieve the information. The goal of the research is to offer a method of storing healthcare facility information in an efficient and effective manner to support facility managers in their response to patient safety events. This dissertation outlines the objectives of this research and the methodologies used in the case analysis. The development of the product model and information exchanges identified is also discussed. Lastly, conceptual model for a prototype was developed and is presented to demonstrate how the product model and ontology can be used to allow the user to query information and interact with the system. / Ph. D.