Futurecare: New Directions in Planning Health and Care Environments

Identifying anticipated future healthcare needs and planning how to meet them is an ongoing challenge. Health and care planners, together with architects and designers, need to ensure that what they plan today will not be redundant in the near future. This book examines the key issues which provides must consider in accommodating health and care needs into the next century. "Futurecare" provides a clear insight for all those concerned in the development of health and care buildings and environments, and examines the core issues which are driving change."Futurecare" illustrates a wide range of important issues including healthcare reform and change, community care and consumer-focused design. It describes the origins of health and care facility planning and examines the influences which will shape future directions. Changes in the way health care is - and will be - delivered are considered, with chapters concentrating on the future care of our ageing population. Illustrated with photographic examples of assisted living programmes and long-term care residential development designs, this innovative text offers guidance for all those involved in the process of planning health and care environments. The key features are: focuses on radically changing needs into the 21st century; examines how current issues will affect future health care provision; and innovation in caring envionments for older people.