Anne DiNardo

Earlier this year I wrote about the evolution of waiting rooms and how these spaces have gone from simply a room with rows of chairs to warm, comfortable environments that are as important to patient and family satisfaction as they are to branding.

OR 360, a project conducted jointly by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the U.S. military, aims to streamline and improve trauma care in the crucial first hour of emergency medical treatment by reconfiguring the surgical suite.

“Pretty bold, isn’t it,” says Jim May, executive vice president and COO, Catholic Health Partners, talking about the colorful tile exterior adorning the new Mercy Health West hospital on the west side of Cincinnati.

Given the nature of today’s healthcare industry, there’s a greater prevalence of renovation and expansion projects than new construction. As a result, project teams are often upgrading active facilities with patients on-site.

Working around sensitive populations, construction teams must be able to read, analyze, and react to shifting elements in the air so that hospital staff and patients can continue to give and receive care in a safe and controlled environment.

Rather than cater to a specific demographic or region, Embryo Clinic IVF unit in Thessaloniki, Greece, focuses on translating its medical expertise into a space where patients will feel at ease throughout a complex process.

“We decided to apply design principles to certain behavioral aspects that are universal and could appeal to people from different cultures and countries,” says Panos Voulgaris, creative director/partner at MALVI (Thessaloniki).

Located at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi, Healthpoint is a comprehensive orthopedic center aimed at attracting patients beyond its borders.

When I get ready to conduct an interview for an article, I go in with a handful of prepared questions—mainly the who, what, where, when and whys—to get the conversation started. I know that after you’ve been on the phone for a while, the barriers start coming down and that’s when people start giving you the real “behind the scenes/this really happened” part of the story that gives your article the right edge or defining angle.

When Cedars-Sinai Medical Center partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) on a simulation center to address trauma care workflow and procedures, they didn’t just think outside the box—they replaced it.

Warm climates have always appealed to medical tourists, and Health City Cayman Islands, a 130,000-square-foot facility that opened in early 2014, takes advantage of its tropical location by providing an abundance of natural light and views to nature.

Designed to attract Americans to the island for cardiovascular and orthopedic health services, the hospital is a partnership between Narayana Health, which oversees a network of 14 hospitals across India, and Ascension, a private not-for-profit health system in the U.S.

For decades, the term “medical tourism” conjured two distinctly different images: the affluent traveling to tropical destinations for nip/tucks or other elective surgeries and, in some parts of the world, individuals crossing borders to find care that wasn’t available close to home. While these markets still exist, the medical tourism industry of today is largely composed of patients traveling to receive tertiary care in specialties such as cardiovascular, orthopedics, weight loss, and more.

Located in Westerville, Ohio, Mount Carmel St. Ann’s Hospital recently underwent renovations to bring new and expanded services to the facility while updating the environment to reflect the local culture.

More than 1 million Americans are expected to travel outside the U.S. for medical care in 2014, according to Patients Beyond Borders, a resource and  publisher on medical tourism. Globally, approximately 11 million patients go abroad for medical treatment.