Emergency Department built environment for mental and behavioural health care
Tracks
Room 2
| Wednesday, December 2, 2026 |
| 1:10 PM - 1:30 PM |
| Concurrent Room 1 |
Overview
Dr Natália Ransolin
Speaker
Dr Natália Ransolin
Macquarie University
Emergency Department built environment for mental and behavioural health care
Abstract
Aggression and violence in Emergency Departments (EDs) are rising, with hyper-stimulus environments — crowding, noise and sensory overload — exacerbating symptoms for people requiring mental and behavioural healthcare (MBH). The MRFF-funded MyED project (2022–2025) collected co-design data with staff, experts and patients across NSW EDs. However, guidance on the built environment (BE) for MBH within EDs remains fragmented. This work synthesises guidelines and 2026 research publications on BE provisions for MBH assessment and management in EDs across system performance, staff experience, patient outcomes, and patient experience. Clinical policies and the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines were retrieved to find ED-specific BE design guidelines for MBH. In parallel, MBH-relevant findings from our systematic review on Evidence-based Design for ED BE strategies were extracted and analysed from the perspective of a BE review focused on studies analysing ED MBH. Guidelines addressing ED BE for MBH assessment and management primarily refer to a Safe/ Behavioural Assessment Room (SAR or BAR) and the BMH Zone. A BE review on ED MBH highlighted the benefits of the BAR for patient and staff outcomes. Broader recommendations include the provision of anti-ligature fixings and fixtures, high vigilance and flexible spaces. However, current SARs are explicitly not designed for neurodiversity, and blueprints for early-management low-stimulus zones are often generic or absent. Of the 169 BE strategies identified in our review, 56 are MBH-specific: 21 for sensory-friendly environments, 26 for safety and security, and 9 for patient flow and care models. Whereas violence in EDs is increasingly reported in research and media, guidance to balance conflicting MBH requirements remains reliant on contextual factors. An integrated, evidence-informed framework to guide ED BE design and repurposing for MBH is needed to allow trade-offs between security and least-restrictive specifications, and to adapt existing resources to create multipurpose, MBH-conducive spaces.
Biography
Dr Natália Ransolin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI), Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science (CHRIS)/Human Factors and Resilience Stream at Macquarie University. Her research focuses on the intersection of Human Factors and Ergonomics, built environment design, and complex sociotechnical systems, with a particular interest in how physical spaces shape human performance, safety outcomes, and patient experience in high-acuity clinical environments.
Natália holds a joint PhD in Civil Engineering and Health Innovation from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, and Macquarie University, Australia, assessed in the top 5% of doctoral research in the field. Her research focuses on how built environment design influences resilient performance across Emergency Departments, Intensive Care Units, and surgical services, drawing on methods including FRAM, HART and evidence-based design frameworks.
She has collaborated with the MRFF-funded MyED Project ($2.8M), which co-designs improved models of care for complex and underserved consumer cohorts across NSW Emergency Departments, including people presenting with mental and behavioural health conditions.
Natália´s presentation synthesises built environment guidelines and evidence-based design research to address a critical gap in ED design for mental and behavioural healthcare — an area where security requirements, least-restrictive care principles, and sensory needs frequently conflict.
Natália has contributed Human Factors technical input to NSW Health Infrastructure's Australasian Health Facility Guidelines and has presented her work at HFESA, International Ergonomics Association (IEA), and Resilient Health Care Society conferences internationally. She is a recipient of the IEA Kingfar Award (2020).
