The hospital is long regarded as a place of healing. After all, most of us expect to leave the hospital feeling better than we did when we were admitted. However, with the rise of bacterial resistance and other pathogens, a stay in the hospital may actually be making people sicker.
For one doctor, Dhruv Khullar, how the hospital is intrinsically laid out may be a big source of the problem. Khullar argues that squeezing sick patients in tight quarters (read: cramped hospital rooms separated by a plastic curtain) is impeding the recovery of all the patients due to contamination, noise interruptions, and general crowdedness.
To combat the growing problem, Khullar proposes an overhaul of current hospital designs to one with private rooms. The cost of treating fewer patients, Khullar says, will offset the cost of the redesign. Will hospitals agree? Somehow I think not.