Anne DiNardo

The importance of artwork in the healthcare environment and its role in the healing process has become more widely accepted over the years. But that still doesn’t mean it’s always part of early design discussions.

Rather, art programs are often addressed later on in the project schedule, maybe even after the drywall is up, leaving art consultants and interior designers to scramble to find appropriate pieces that fit on existing walls and ceilings.

Sight and touch are the senses most obviously affected by the built environment, and in a healthcare setting, what you hear and smell are also important factors that can’t be ignored. Masking efforts are one way to go. In some case, you can take a more active approach.

For decades, Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, Calif.) had been serving the metro Portland, Ore., area through its Sunnyside Hospital on the southeast side of town, and several medical office buildings (MOBs) on the west side, including Sunset Medical Center. But as the population began to grow, the organization set out to build a new hospital on the existing Sunset MOB property in Hillsboro, Ore., to help it further serve this expanding community.

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.

My first lesson on the value of artwork in a healthcare setting occurred about nine years ago when I was walking the hallways of a maternity ward. It was the middle of the night, I was having regular contractions, but I wasn’t far enough along to be admitted to the hospital. So the nurse gave me the option to walk the hallways for a few hours or go home.

So off I went, walking and walking and walking, and that’s where my husband and I came across a pastel-colored image of a man with shoulder-length wavy blond hair and faded blue jeans holding hands with a child.

Completion date: July 2012

Owner: Ty Cobb Regional Medical Center

Architecture: Earl Architects LLC

Interior design: Maregatti Interiors

Contracting: MPA of Georgia

Engineering: Pruett, Ford & Associates

IT and telecommunications engineer: EDI, Ltd.

Construction: Freese Johnson Construction

Total building area: 155,000 sq. ft. (hospital); 35,000 sq. ft. (MOB)

Total construction cost: $37,159,656 (building); $2,969,514 (site)

Cost/sq.ft.: $239.72 (building); $19.16 (site)

Like other rural facilities across the county, Ty Cobb Healthcare System (Royston, Ga.) felt the pressures of providing rural healthcare in a modern age: rising costs, funding shortages, increasing competition, and a shrinking medical staff population.

This month, PBS released the documentary The Waiting Room, providing a 24-hour window into the ER waiting room at Highland Hospital in Oakland, Calif. “We’re a public hospital, we’re the safety net in society, the institution of last resort for so many people,” says one of the doctors during the film.

With the goal of delivering cancer care closer to the community, UMass Memorial Health Care (Worcester, Mass.) added a new cancer center at its Marlborough Hospital in central Massachusetts. UMass worked with architects from The S/L/A/M Collaborative (Glastonbury, Conn.) to build a facility  that would focus on the human experience of cancer care and provide a nurturing and healing environment.

With offices in three neighborhoods and a separate therapy/gymnasium space in another town, Pain and Rehabilitative Consultants Medical Group (PRCMG) wanted to consolidate all of its operations under one roof in Emeryville, Calif.