Having operated its current facility since the early 1970s, the University of Connecticut Dempsey Hospital was faced with an out-of-date building with undersized rooms, inefficient mechanical systems, small floor plates, and a lack of staff collaboration spaces.
The 50th anniversary of Denver Health and Hospital Authority’s (DHHA) community health centers coincided with the grand opening of its new Federico Peña Southwest Family Health Center and Urgent Care this spring.
Many design firms across the country say that some of their most innovative work comes when working with academic medical center clients. “Often they’re pioneers in specialty services and research,” says Omri Kenneth Webb, associate principal and senior vice president at HKS (Washington, D.C.). “This manifests itself into the design of new facilities and specialty rooms.”
In this series, Healthcare Design asks leading healthcare design professionals, firms, and owners to tell us what’s got their attention and share some ideas on the subject.
Architect Mary Frazier, principal at EwingCole and member of Healthcare Design's Editorial Advisory Board, has 20 years of experience in the planning and design of healthcare facilities. Here, she shares her thoughts on technology’s role in improving care, the need for better hospital food, and emergency department design.
Western Digital Corp., a developer and manufacturer of digital storage solutions, asked LPA, Inc. (Irvine, Calif.) to design an employee wellness center at its corporate headquarters in Irvine, Calif. Dedicated to Western Digital employees, the DRIVE Wellness Center provides convenient, cost-effective access to healthcare services and promotes a healthy work-life balance.
Advocate Christ Medical Center’s new East Patient Tower (Oak Lawn, Ill.) serves two critical needs identified by the health system during master planning and ED optimization assessments: Expansion of intensive care capacity to accommodate increased emergency and cardiovascular admissions and consolidation of birthing and neonatal services into a state-of-the-art women and infants center.
In this series, Healthcare Design asks leading healthcare design professionals, firms, and owners to tell us what’s got their attention and share some ideas on the subject.
Family caregivers can spend long periods of time in the Level I trauma ICU at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y. Previously, the hospital housed a waiting room adjacent to the ICU where visitors could take a break without leaving the unit, but it wasn’t an ideal setting to have a consultation with medical professionals or try to rest, says Tom Lurcott, director of design coordination at Westchester Medical Center.
Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus (Glasgow, Scotland), which opened to patients in July 2015, brings together Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow, making it one of Europe’s largest and most advanced medical campuses.
When Golisano Children’s Hospital sought input about its current wayfinding and signage program from patient and family focus groups to help guide the design of a new eight-story, $145 million facility in Rochester, N.Y., it got some brutally honest feedback. “Your current hospital lobby is too stressful.” “I can’t make sense of this wayfinding.” “When I just need to get to cardiology, I don’t remember if that unit is named after someone.
Hospital dining should be a place of respite for patients, visitors, and employees alike, but at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the 13,500-square-foot cafeteria was serving up a dated environment.
The effort to promote and support population health and wellness has few rivals in its influence on healthcare today, inspiring the planning, design, and construction community to create environments that help providers deliver on that mission. The solutions being brought to the table vary widely, though, each in its own way answering the call. Healthcare Design asked industry members how wellness is being defined in their work—and they showed us.
