In October 2025, the Australian Health Design Council convened AHDC Connect — a pre-conference workshop bringing together around 45 architects, researchers, health planners, and policy professionals to tackle a persistent problem: why doesn't research translate into better-designed healthcare buildings?

The short answer, according to participants, is that it's not a knowledge problem. The evidence exists. The issue is that the systems around design projects: funding models, procurement processes, governance structures, and project timelines; don't make space for research to be used effectively. Research is typically brought in too late to influence key decisions, isn't funded as part of project budgets, and is often presented in formats that don't suit how designers actually work.

Four findings stood out across the workshop. First, the research–practice gap is a system design problem, not a skills gap. Second, if researchers aren't involved at the earliest stages of a project, their input rarely sticks. Third, the bottleneck is adoption, not the production of new knowledge. And fourth, making the economic case for good design is essential: health departments and treasuries respond to numbers, not principles.

Participants proposed practical actions at three levels. Individually: communicate research more clearly and make tacit professional knowledge visible. At the industry level: embed researchers in practice teams, build shared knowledge repositories, and push for peer review that goes beyond aesthetics. At the government level: reform ethics approval processes, require research allocations in project budgets, and develop an economic model that demonstrates the long-term value of design quality.

The workshop's closing message was direct: more evidence alone won't close the gap. What's needed is coordinated structural reform: changes to how healthcare design projects are funded, governed, and evaluated.

The full findings report is available here:

Bridging Practice and Research in Healthcare Design (AHDC Connect 2025).pdf