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.
David Surette is director of healthcare and life sciences at Shawmut Design and Construction (Boston). Here, he shares his thoughts on construction schedules, expanding behavioral health services, and the changing space of healthcare facilities.
1. Communication is critical in construction
When Jenifer LaRose, an RN, CPN, and clinical manager of the sixth floor at Hasbro Children’s Hospital (Providence, R.I.), started her career in nursing 20 years ago, she says families were not embraced as part of a patient’s care team.
And even if hospitals had designated spaces for families spending time in the hospital with their loved ones, they typically held a couch or two and a TV, but nothing that really made them feel welcoming and home-like.
Providers have put a lot of time and effort into fine-tuning the patient experience and creating supportive workplaces for staff—and with good reason. But their sights are now resting on another population that’s coming into healthcare buildings: families and visitors.
One of the reasons is that moms, dads, siblings, spouses, and friends are being recognized as important players on patients’ care teams.
The stage is set for designers and manufacturers to talk about product content and material disclosure like never before.
I recently talked with Brendan Owens, vice president of LEED technical development for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), about how the LEED rating system is helping to drive that discussion. Here's an excerpt from our discussion:
Can something as simple as a curved doorway or undulating roof line on the exterior of a healthcare facility trigger a fear response in patients?
Last summer, Building Trust International, a Brighton, England-based nonprofit that uses design to address global issues, was constructing a new medical dispensary for a rapidly growing diabetic population in Siem Reap, Cambodia—a project that inspired its leaders to see mobile health clinics as a way to improve access to care for some of the most densely populated and poorest parts of the planet.
Healthcare organizations are demanding more information and data in the pre-design stages of projects.
While architects and designers have an array of tools at their disposal to help provide that information in a timely manner, Vincent Della Donna, director of healthcare services, Gannett Fleming Architects and Engineers (Camp Hill, Pa.), says there’s one he’d like to see more people using: simulation modeling.
The Toronto Birth Centre is a pilot project that emerged from a recent initiative to shift non-acute health services out of the hospital setting and into community-based healthcare centers.
In Ontario, more than three-quarters of women cared for by midwives have hospital births, while the rest choose to deliver at home. The midwife-run Toronto Birth Centre was created to offer a third option for woman with low-risk pregnancies who want a natural, out-of-hospital childbirth.
Eye Physicians of Austin had been in its current location in central Austin, Texas, for more than 35 years and had outgrown the space. Rather than relocating, the team decided to build a contemporary facility on its existing property.
The new pedestrian-oriented structure would be located along the street, housing the ophthalmology practice on the second floor and retail and restaurant space on the glass-encased ground level.
Completion date: May 2013
Total building area: 75,600 sq. ft. conditioned space; 6,500 sq. ft. mechanical penthouse
Total construction cost: $28.8 million
Cost/sq. ft.: $350
Owner: Seton Healthcare Family
Architecture: Polkinghorn Group Architects Inc.
Landscape architect: TBG Partners
Interior design: Obrentz Design Group
Contracting: The Beck Group
Civil Engineer: Bury
Structural: Datum Engineers Inc.
MEP Engineer: CCRD Partners
Commissioning agent: ACR Engineering
In 2007, Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas opened what would earn the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) first LEED Platinum certification under the rating system’s new construction category.
