The Analysis of Community Health Centers in terms of Spatial Configuration, Spatial Allocation, and Organizational Constructs

Purpose: The main purpose of this dissertation research is to systematically analyze Community Health Centers (CHCs) in terms of spatial configuration, spatial allocation, and their relationships with different organizational constructs. The focus of spatial configuration analysis is visibility and accessibility; the focus of spatial allocation analysis is the amount of space assigned for different functions of exam rooms, clinician’s offices, nursing sations, and registration offices; and the focus of the organizational construct analysis is staff-staff and staff-patient communication and interaction, staff and patient privacy, clinician’s awareness over patients. The goal of the research is to find out how spatial configuration support and/or improves organizational construct including communication, interaction, privacy, and awareness. Furthermore, this research explores the spatial allocation of clinics within CHCs to find out how spatial allocation varies within the CHCs of different sizes for the enhancement of future clinic design and planning strategies.Research background and finding a gap: Prior research in various healthcare environments has demonstrated that improved staff areas can enhance comfort and boost employee performance, while frequent interactions between staff members can lead to reduced mistakes and heightened collaboration within healthcare settings. (Rashid et al., 2014; Rashid & Zimring, 2008; Rashid 2006; S.Zadeh & Shepley, 2012). Nonetheless, the majority of these empirical investigations have primarily concentrated on hospitals, with a comparatively limited focus on clinics within the CHCs. Significance: In this research, CHCs are considered outpatient health centers which provide primary health care for all the people within the scale of the community and surrounding areas. They include the Federally Qualified CHCs (FQCHC), public health departments, and community health clinics and facilities, family practice and dental clinic. Most CHCs provide affordable primary healthcare services to all patients including the uninsured, low-income ones, or those living in remote areas. This study is needed since there is a lack of rigorous studies on the relationships among spatial configuration, visibility, accessibility, and organizational constructs, as well as the variety of the spatial allocation within clinics of CHCs of various sizes within clinics of the CHCs. Methodology: The study includes 15 large, medium, and small clinics within the CHCs from different parts of the USA. There will be five cases from each category. It uses a mixed method of a case study based on qualitative and quantitative studies. Firstly, the visibility and accessibility analysis of the layout plans is conducted using Space Syntax Analysis (Hillier and Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 2007) as a qauntitative method. For visibility and accessibility analysis, spatial and visual attributes include connectivity, and integration is the key space. We identify several basic spatial features of organizational structures and use them for analyzing the clinic's layouts in CHCs. We show different spatial approaches used by these organizations, connecting space syntax to organizational constructs. These approaches can help with designing and evaluating clinic layouts in general, as they influence an organization's behavior and actions. Systematic functional distribution analysis as a qualitative methods is combined with SSA to provide a more comprehensive understanding. On the other note, spatial allocation is determined based on the amount of space given for different functions of exam rooms, clinician’s offices, nursing sations, and registration offices within the main clinics of the CHCs of various sizes.Findings: Based on the findings of different spatial analyses of the 15 case studies, the study shows how visibility, accessibility, and spatial allocation vary in CHCs of different sizes. The study also shows how spatial configurations are related to organizational constructs including communication, interaction, privacy, and awareness, and consequently staff efficiency and productivity within these CHCs.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Afsary, Shermineh

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rashid, Mahbub MR

• Architecture
• Community Health Center
• Healthcare Architecture
• Organizational Costruct
• Space Syntax Analysis
• Spatial Allocation
• Spatial Layout Configuration

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:19169

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/38765