A measurement for evaluating the environmental quality of advanced healthcare facilities: Intelligent healthscape quality for medical staff

Abstract

Healthcare facilities, where the newest medical technology based services are implemented by multiple stakeholders should be considered with a different point of view from other types of service buildings. However, there has been little effort to suggest the specific characteristics of advanced (technology-enhanced) healthcare facilities and moreover, most studies only discuss the patient's viewpoint. This study aims to suggest a theoretical background of Intelligent Healthscape Quality (IHQ) and determine evaluation measurements from the perspective of healthscape, which is a more integrated and contextual indicator than indoor environment quality (IEQ). Based on 36 items from the literature review, focus group interviews with 9 nurses, produced a 9 item optimized scale for the IHQ. Furthermore, a scale refinement, confirmation and validation procedure was implemented through the structural equation model. Finally, 5 dimensions (advanced technology, safety, ambience, layout accessibility, and sociality) with 17 factors were drawn and show that all dimensions and factors are reliable and valid measurements, both statistically and qualitatively. This construct includes not only traditional servicescape criteria but also newly proposed dimensions suitable for intelligent healthcare facilities. The results of the study support the robustness of the concept of intelligent healthscape quality as a multidimensional space that has a significant impact on medical staff satisfaction. Dimensionality of the intelligent healthscape as well as the scale development procedure of this study can contribute to analyze the quality of the built environment.