Healthy Design

In 2006, an Alberta woman went to the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton for treatment.  She ended up dying of an overdose of chemo.  An investigation documented a litany of problems. But the most important factor in the woman's death was that the nurses had trouble with a medical device called an infusion pump. These machines are used every day at hospitals across Canada to deliver intravenous medications.   

That case and others have prompted experts to ask whether infusion pumps are sometimes too complicated to operate. One of those experts is Anjum Chagpar.  She's a human factors engineer at University Health Network in Toronto.   

Also on the program an architectural tour of a brand new psychiatric hospital that's trying to strike a balance between hominess for patients and security concerns.

And the astonishing number of footsteps your average RN takes during a typical shift at work and why a hospital design guru thinks steps should be made to change that.

This episode of WCBA airs Saturday, November 6 at 11 am (1130 NT) and again on Monday November 8 at 1130 am (noon NT) on CBC Radio One.