From “Baby Barn” to the “Single Family Room Designed NICU”: A Report of Staff Perceptions One Year Post Occupancy

The incorporation of the single-family room (SFR) into the design of neonatal intensive care units has been a recent paradigm shift and focuses first and foremost on the developmental needs of critically ill or extremely premature infants. This article reports the perceptions of an interdisciplinary staff one year after the move from a large open room design into an SFR neonatal intensive care unit. Staff completed a questionnaire as part of a quality improvement initiative to gain opinions about the SFR design; new unit technologies; and to find ways to make the unit a better place for patients, families, and staff, and to assist others considering building the SFR model. The results suggest that when compared to the open unit “Baby Barn” design, the SFR model was deemed to be better for patient care, less stressful for staff, and provided an improved physical environment for patients, families, and staff.

Keywords: Newborn intensive care unit design, Single-family room, Post occupancy survey, Staff perceptions