Specialist provider of healthcare alarm and communication solutions, Static Systems Group, has unveiled the latest development in its industry-renowned Design & Innovation Centre, which is based at the company’s head office, near Wolverhampton in the West Midlands.
The new single-bed ‘Concept Ward’ aims to showcase future healthcare technology and innovation and foster greater industry collaboration in ward design.
The launch of the Concept Ward comes exactly two years after the opening of the company’s Design & Innovation Centre (D&IC), which had at its core a four-bed bay repeatable room design.
Phil Wade, Marketing Director at Static Systems, explains: “Our new Concept Ward is the natural progression from the Design & Innovation Centre in that it takes ward design to the next level, is visionary and aims to demonstrate future healthcare technology and innovation. We always intended for our Design & Innovation Centre to extend beyond the four-bed ward, which is very much about demonstrating features that are readily available now. As a technology-led company, we’re always looking to develop new ideas and we wanted to introduce something that was forward thinking and would also complement the original four-bed ward, which will continue to play an important role in standard ward design.”
As with the four-bed ward, the development of Static Systems’ Concept Ward has been backed by support, investment and the provision of technology from a number of leading industry suppliers including Tarkett Flooring, Armitage Shanks, Rockfon Ceilings, Thorlux Lighting, Akzo Nobel and KwickScreen. During the development of the new ward, Static Systems also consulted with a number of organisations and industry representatives including healthcare planners, nursing managers, architects and construction teams and key industry bodies.
But as Phil explains, the close collaboration with suppliers and healthcare professionals doesn’t stop now that the ward has been built: “Our vision for the Concept Ward, alongside our well-established four-bed ward, is for a facility that can be used by the wider industry to test, trial and develop innovative solutions and conceptual ideas. We want to encourage closer collaborative working among equipment suppliers and specialists, nursing management teams, patient representatives, healthcare planners, design groups, constructors and other interested parties to enable the ongoing provision and delivery of world-class buildings and facilities and help improve healthcare outcomes for all.
“The importance of close engagement and greater industry collaboration was stressed in both the recommendations of the Carter Review last year and more recently in the ‘Engineering Better Care’ Report (August 2017), and our Concept Ward provides an ideal platform to foster this engagement and collaboration.”
Phil adds: “You can’t easily test new technologies or processes in a live ward scenario and that’s where the Concept Ward comes into its own. It enables healthcare professionals to test these things in a safe and controlled environment, and to shape future ward design that addresses the core goals of workflow efficiency, patient safety and patient experience – goals that also happen to be central to Static Systems’ approach to designing, producing and implementing healthcare communications systems. Rather like the concept car that is unveiled at motor shows, we would like to see the Concept Ward as a healthcare hub where ideas that start out as theories might just come to fruition and be seen as the norm five or more years down the line.”
Static Systems is encouraging healthcare representatives to share their ward design challenges or futuristic ideas so that these can be explored in the Concept Ward. The company will also be making the Concept Ward available as a venue for industry workshops and seminars. To find out more, or to register your interest in holding an event or taking part in a tour of the Design & Innovation Centre, please email designandinnovationcentre@staticsystems.co.uk or call the company’s head office on: 01902 895 551.
