Lean-Led Hospital Design

Appendix A: A Little History

Hospitals acquire their own identities, reinforced by architectural features and interior furnishings. Each composite personality, moreover, rests in great measure on traditions and staff behavior.

—Guenter B. RisseMending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals

Introduction

This book is about the way in which hospitals could be built in the future. It is a more complicated subject than it may seem because the hospital—as a place and as an institution—interweaves so many strands of American life.

First and foremost, ...