Promoting patient and family engagement through healthcare facility design: A systematic literature review

Objectives: Summarize and synthesize published literature regarding whether the physical design of healthcare facilities affect patient and family engagement in care. Design: Systematic literature review. Data sources: EBSCOhost Health Business FullTEXT, InformeDesign, Journal of Interior Design, Journal of Health Environments Research and Design and hand search. Thesaurus, MeSH and truncated terms were used where appropriate. Review methods: A modified PICO framework was used to develop literature search strategies. Articles that met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. Results: A total of 18 articles met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Conclusions: There is a modest amount of evidence indicating that the physical environment may affect patient and family engaged care. Designs that are comfortable and foster control of one's physical and social environment, access to social support and positive distractions may enhance the patient and family experience and promote engagement in care delivery.