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Oak Brook, IL, November 28, 2007 — Joint Commission Resources (JCR) today announced the release of the new book Safe by Design: Designing Safety in Health Care Facilities, Processes, and Culture. JCR is a not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission.

Safe by Design: Designing Safety in Health Care Facilities, Processes, and Culture offers lessons learned from the National Learning Lab, a gathering of health care professionals from across the country that explored the issue of safety in hospital design. This book — the result of that groundbreaking conference — is designed to help organizations design safety into their facilities by:

• Understanding the development and application of safety design principles, including designing around latent conditions, active failures, design process recommendations, and design processes to enhance safety culture;
• Involving caregivers such as nurses and physicians, architects, and patients in the design and construction of safe care environments; and
• Learning from success by adapting practical and workable safety design strategies from health care organizations committed to designing safe environments.

"The focus of safety in design improves the care environment for patients and caregivers, resulting in safer care and enhanced safety culture," says author John Reiling, M.H.A., M.B.A., Ph.D., president/chief executive officer, Safe by Design, and project manager for Boca Raton Community Hospital's replacement facility.

This book is a "how to" manual based on Reiling's experiences with the National Learning Lab. Reiling, the former president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph's Hospital/Synergy Health, West Bend, Wis., shows how to apply design principles to hospitals throughout the U.S and internationally. The new St. Joseph's Hospital, constructed under Reiling's watch, has been highly publicized — including appearing on the front page of The Wall Street Journal — for its ground breaking patient safety initiatives.

This book also features contributions from Thomas K. Wallen, A.I.A., the architect who designed the St. Joseph's Hospital project, and John W. Overton, M.D., a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon, who comments on fostering medical staff involvement in facility design and safety culture.

Safe by Design: Designing Safety in Health Care Facilities, Processes and Culture is available for $79 using order code SBD07SJ. To order, call JCR Customer Service toll-free at 877.223.6866, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. CT, weekdays, or visit www.jcrinc.com.

Source: Joint Commission