Sharing the Outcomes of Evidence-Based and Research Projects.

Abstract

Sharing the information and photos of a completed architectural or interior design project is often top of mind for design firms. Designers are eager to share their finished projects with their colleagues, but most importantly with other potential clients. A completed project provides an opportunity to market and promote the capabilities of a design firm. Sharing information from an evidence-based design (EBD) project or a completed research project is equally important, because the outcomes provide future that can be used by other designers in future projects.[Image omitted: See PDF.]Evidence-Based Design or Research ProjectsThere is a fine line of distinction between an EBD project and an interventional research project. The EBD project is typically a single-site project that uses existing from previously published research studies, personal experience, or expertise from the design consultants and/or the hospital leadership, and best practice examples from other completed A true EBD identifies a specific design feature and a metric that will measure the effect of that design feature before and after the project is completed. A hospital project may actually have several EBD or mini research projects within the overall scope of work with many specific design features tested. Because the EBD focuses on one design feature in a single site, the findings or outcomes are not generalizable to other settings. Certainly, the published findings of the completed EBD project can guide other designers who may wish to replicate the same EBD project and use the design feature as an intervention to be measured before and after their project is built. The more the EBD is replicated, the more generalizable the findings become.Similarly, a comparative interventional research study identifies a specific design feature to study, hypothesizes (states an assumption) that the feature will make a difference in the desired outcomes, and identifies specific metrics that will measure the effect of the design intervention on the outcomes measured. Often comparative interventional studies are single-site studies, and therefore their findings are also not generalizable to a wider audience. Like the EBD, the comparative interventional study can be replicated multiple times until it can be assumed that the findings are stable across multiple settings and can be considered generalizable.Both the EBD and the comparative interventional research study use a pre- and post-metric to measure the effect of a design feature (intervention) on specified outcomes ([Pati, 2010]). Without the measurement pre- and post-intervention, the project cannot truly be called an EBD ([Stichler, 2010b]). Projects that do not measure outcomes using existing from previously published studies, best practice examples, and the design team's expertise are more correctly called evidence informed projects. Another frequently used term is research utilization, which indicates that the design team used/utilized the findings or outcomes from a published research study in their project ([Hamilton, 2015]).The terms and the processes of EBD and research are not mutually exclusive; however, they do represent different processes and outcomes. EBD uses existing knowledge from published studies and previously completed projects to inform the current or new project. On the other hand, the research process is used when there isn't any or there isn't sufficient knowledge from previously published studies to inform the current or new project. Therefore, research generates new knowledge and that is why it is critical to share or disseminate that new knowledge to others who could use the information in their [Figure 1] provides a conceptual model of EBD and research illustrating how the two processes overlap, but also how they are different from one another. It is important to note, however, that both EBD and research require measurement. …