FAST COMPANY ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2020 WORLD CHANGING IDEAS AWARDS→

VERDAY HEALTH SELECTED AS FINALIST IN SPACES, PLACES AND CITIES CATEGORY

 New York, April 28, 2020 — The winners of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to flattening the curve when it comes to the climate crisis, social injustice, or economic inequality.

Verday Health was selected as a Finalist for Modular Health and Housing in the Spaces, Places and Cities category.

Now in its fourth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 26 winners, more than 200 finalists, and more than 500 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, Corporate Social Responsibility, and AI and Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent judges selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 3,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more.

Illustrating how some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies are addressing grave global challenges, Fast Company’s May/June issue celebrates a broad range of visionary companies across the globe, from Vancouver to Singapore to Tel Aviv.

“We’re thrilled to be recognized by Fast Company as a visionary company in the Spaces, Places and Cities category,” said Verday Health Co-Founder and CEO Susan Dix Lyons. “Health design is critically important and we need new solutions that are evidence-based, human-centered and fiscally efficient to meet the complex needs of health care today while anticipating the challenges and opportunities of the future.”  

“There seems no better time to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, resources, and, in some cases, their scale to tackle society’s biggest problems,” says Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have uncovered some of the smartest and most inspiring projects of the year.”

About the World Changing Ideas Awards: World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With a goal of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all. 

The Future of Health Care – and Design

Photo from The Center for Health Design

The Covid-19 pandemic has gotten us all thinking about the ways in which our world is going to change. That’s just as true for design and construction of the spaces in which we live and care for others. At Verday Health, we see this moment as one that’s likely to accelerate positive advancements in health care – and that, of course, is a good thing.

From the beginning, our prototypes were developed with the assumption that telemedicine would become a common way to connect for routine health issues, particularly in rural markets. That’s part of the reason why our prototypes were designed with fewer exam rooms – both to maximize efficiency and integrate telemedicine into the providers’ environments. There will still be times when patients will need or want to see their health care provider in-person, but we anticipate those occasions to be less frequent than in the past as convenience becomes more important and technology more universally accepted. We considered how our exam rooms and behavioral health spaces could be designed to naturally integrate both in-person and virtual check-ups, eliminating the need for additional spaces or a strict division between how health consults are delivered.

We also felt it was important to be certified in Evidence-Based Design (EBD), the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes. Safety and infection control are central to an EBD approach to design and building, as is environmental sustainability, communication, and aesthetic considerations that have been proven to enhance overall health outcomes and patient experience. Our prototypes are designed as patient-centered medical homes that are safe, efficient, and rewarding to navigate and occupy.

In addition, our human-centered approach preferences the experience and input of not just executives and administrators, but also health care providers, support workers, patients and their families. We believe that communication and agency is vitally important to the health care process, and that the perspectives of all stakeholders should be considered in design solutions. Our pre-design process includes interviews with representatives of all stakeholder groups, ensuring we don’t miss things important to the health care journey for those who will ultimately occupy or receive care in our clinic environments.

Rural and safety net hospitals, which struggle during normal times, are especially under threat of  closing across our nation under the burden of the global pandemic coupled with the economic downturn. This means many communities may lose access to vital services. Supplemental legislation is needed to help save these safety-net facilities, but we also need new solutions for the future that thoughtfully integrate clinical needs with technology to create environments that meet stakeholders’ needs. That’s what we’re dedicated to creating at Verday Health.

Reach out to us if you have thoughts, ideas or questions.