Single rooms becoming the norm in new hospitals

Newly built hospitals should have all single rooms because they reduce infections and may reduce medication errors, according to the authors of a new paper. A focus on single rooms would increase construction costs, with one study finding that the cost for building a new ward with only single-patient rooms would be $182 to $400 per patient, versus $122 to $500 per patient for double rooms. But many of those costs are capital costs and would be recouped relatively quickly, say the paper's authors.