Abstract
I was pleased to offer a review of The Patient Room, recently authored in Germany, for the Fall 2021 issue of Health Environments Research & Design Journal (HERD Journal). In preparing that review, it reinforced my experience that there is a significantly different perspective on many key characteristics of patient rooms between the United States and other higher income nations, most notably including the distinction of private and semiprivate settings. My comments at the close of that review should serve as a challenge to stakeholders in multiple nations regarding the value of single-patient (private) rooms versus double (semiprivate) rooms in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. As of this writing, there appears to have been nothing initiated, much less written, regarding that subject. And given the European model, focused on semiprivate beds—and the US model based upon private beds—it would seem that the events since March 2020 would be ripe for investigations of how those room types have yielded any distinctive difference toward achieving beneficial outcomes from COVID-19 infections.
To date, it appears that the measures taken in the United States to address the outcomes of COVID-19 in private room inpatient settings versus semiprivate (or temporary ward) settings have been largely anecdotal—citing the anomalies of utilization of hospital space not otherwise used for patient bedded care and temporary off-site settings. Yet, over the span of 2 years and hundreds of facilities across the globe, I remain confident that a rigorous research study can help all of us better understand whether there are distinguishing values of private rooms relative to semiprivate rooms when addressing infection control, bed utilization, and other key care and outcome characteristics. Again, I’m hopeful that some of our colleagues among the readership of HERD Journal will take up that challenge.