A Bio and A Story

The Bio

 

Ken Dickerman has practiced healthcare design for about thirty years. His projects range from small additions to new, freestanding hospitals. He has worked in seventeen states and two foreign countries. A graduate of Georgia Tech, he travelled extensively (25 foreign countries) during his college years and upon graduation served as an officer in the US Air Force. He is registered in Florida and holds a National Council of Architectural Registration Boards certificate.

 

Ken is a Founding Member of the American College of Healthcare Architects. He has been a long time member of the Academy of Architecture for Health and its predecessors and is Co-chair of the Codes and Standards Forum of the AAH. Previously, he served as chair of the Programming and the Master and Strategic Facilities Master Planning Sub-committees. He has served on the Revision Committee for the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities for the two most recent cycles and he is Chair of the Patient Safety Working Group for that organization.

 

Ken’s published works include two books, Hospital Space Programming, Guidelines for Departmental Space Requirements and Florida Project Development Guide. He has also published numerous papers and articles and has been a speaker at national and international symposia.

 

 

 

We would like to tell you about our experience and how we came to be interested in this particular area of design. First, a brief bio of Ken Dickerman, then the story.

The Story (in Ken’s words)

 

About four years ago,  I made the acquaintance of a physician who was interested in patient safety and its relationship with the built environment. He hosted a conference in April of 2004 at which speakers from a variety of venues and professions came together to discuss patient safety. Many of the attendees were interested in the relationship of the physical environment and safety.

 

An intense period of reading and research followed and this brought the realization that it was likely, although not proven in every detail, that healthcare environments played both a direct and indirect role in the immense national and international patient safety (and staff safety) problem. It seemed to me that owners and architects were attempting to approach patient safety design as an overlay which could be added to the surface of a project as it progressed. This ignored the work of Reason, Perrow and others who found that safety was an ingrained and integral part of systems, including systems of care, which must be addressed in every aspect of project development.

 

Although I have worked for several prominent healthcare design firms, it seems to me that the venue of a consulting organization focused expressly on patient safety design would be the best vehicle for future development and application of ideas which would incorporate research into medical safety with knowledge of the design professions and process to improve environments for care.

Diagram illustrating Perrow’s concept of coupling and complexity as factors in system design and accidents.