Measure the Accessibility of Healthcare Environments. The Case of the University Health Board Le Scotte of Siena

The issue of accessibility and safety in health services is explicitly faced in the procedures for analyzing and verifying health services, both in the prescriptive (regulatory) and voluntary (quality) areas. In this context, some healthcare centers have drawn up a series of specific initiatives designed to verify, evaluate, monitor and plan interventions aimed at overcoming the so-called architectural barriers. Barriers, impediments, which in the specific case of healthcare environments take on particular relevance as the user is, for definition, in a condition of deficit, stress, psycho-physical-cognitive. The paper proposed concerns the research activities that the section of the DiDA department, of the Tesis inter-university center, has developed in the context of an agreement with the University Health Service of the Scotte di Siena (AOUS). The research, during the 3 years of the agreement, defined an intervention pattern (Plan of Overcoming Architectural Barriers) as well as national and regional reference legislation, mapping critical conditions, overcoming systems and/or mitigation of the detected problems, the intervention priorities of the maximum costs for their overcoming and the communication strategies able to facilitate the user in the accessibility of the environments. Operationally, the focus of the research was the definition of the environmental data sheets for detection and evaluation and their management method. Specifically, the use model was defined in the GIS environment (routes analyzed in the various types of users) of the hospital, correlating the data collected with the management system (spaces technologiesorganization) computerized for use by the AOUS developed in the CAFM (Computer Aided Facility Management) environment. As part of the paper, the operational phases, the tools and methodologies put in place and the first measurable effects within the case study will be described.