The big panes do more than give patients a chance to look at the ferris wheel on nearby Navy Pier. They let people know when it's night and day in a place where it is all too easy to get disoriented. A banquette built below each window extends to become a cot, so family members can stay overnight. The rooms are carpeted and have wood-grained closets and shelves for a patient's belongings. Private rooms also make it easier to control infections, long the bane of hospitals and a chief reason for long stays and higher costs.
Roommates tend to catch one another's colds, or worse.
The number of people who march in and out of a shared room can easily spread an undetected case of TB around the hospital. For infectious patients, Northwestern has special rooms where air flows in from the hallways but not out, keeping airborne bacteria from catching a ride. But there are lots of reasons we don't. If the sink is in the patient's bathroom, you feel like you're invading very private space when you go in. So you start going to a central sink down the hall.