Hospitals nationwide are making efforts to add more private rooms in response to growing patient demand, reports The Boston Globe.
Rochester-Minn.-based Mayo Clinic recently completed a $200 billion expansion project to add more private rooms. Now, 91 percent of the hospital's 1,296 beds are in private rooms.
"A lot of folks come here expecting we probably have all private rooms," Ken Ackerman, Mayo Clinic's associate administrator for hospital operation, told The Globe. "It is something that our staff sometimes have to deal with. Patient experience can take a hit when patients have to share a room."
Assigning patients to double rooms can not only hurt patient experience, but also pose logistical challenges when it comes to room assignments and safety concerns over patients passing infections to others.
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