The Impact of the Design of Hospitals on Hospital Hoteling, Healing Process and Medical Tourism

The design of hospitals is extremely important; any person may spend a part of his life in a hospital. Considering human interaction with the environment, psychological aspects of design and their impact on the moods of inpatients and their companions and medical team ergonomics and performance, the process of designing hospitals becomes more complex. The design of operational spaces in hospitals lack appropriate and functional properties in this regard. This paper considers the studies on the role of architecture and appropriate design on increasing the quality of the hospital hoteling, patients’ satisfaction, life expectancy and improved healing process, considering the design of spaces for inpatients’ companion and medical team. Furthermore, considering the potential and capacity of admitting foreign patients in Iran, the impact of these factors on medical tourism is also investigated. The objective of the present research is applied and is descriptive/analytical that considered various aspects of the problem from different perspectives. The findings of the research show that implementing the above standards in designing hospitals leads to increased satisfaction, improvement in inpatient morale, speedy healing process, and more relaxed patients’ family and medical staff. In addition, the impacts of the above items will result in increased medical tourism.