Singapore is called the Garden City for its abundance of trees and gardens, a feature that’s included in the design of Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital (MNH). The hospital’s commitment to green is further demonstrated through a number of sustainable design elements that help minimize waste and increase savings.
Completion Date: April 2012
Owner: Parkway Pantai Ltd
Architecture and interior design: HOK
Associate architect: CIAP Architects Pte Ltd
Contracting: Langdon and Seah (quantity surveyor)
Structural engineer: T.Y. Lin International Pte Ltd
Mechanical engineer: Parsons Brinckerhoff Pte Ltd
Civil engineer: T.Y. Lin International Pte Ltd
Curtain wall consultant: Arup Singapore Pte Ltd
In an area of Singapore that already includes a destination medical center with a public hospital and medical office building nearby, competition among private medical providers to have a presence there is high. Parkway Pantai Ltd. (Singapore), one of Asia’s largest private healthcare providers, was one of six operators bidding on a single piece of land.
All it took for me was one night in the hospital with my daughter, going from sleeping upright in a bedside rocker to a hard vinyl couch that was at least six inches too short, to understand the importance of comfort for both patients and caregivers.
In this series, Healthcare Design magazine asks leading healthcare design professionals, firms, and owners to tell us what’s got their attention and share some ideas on the subject.
Here, Gary Vance, national director of healthcare at BSA LifeStructures (Indianapolis), shares his thoughts on current trends in the healthcare industry and how they relate to the planning and design of future facilities.
1. Strategic plans: “They’re not what they use to be”
A visit to a doctor’s office or hospital is stressful enough without the worry of “How long is this going to take?” Recently, Angie’s List, a member review and rating service, found that of 1,008 members who responded to an online poll, 65 percent estimate they’ve waited an hour or more to see a healthcare provider.
In 1813, Samuel Tuke wrote the following in a description of York Retreat, an institution for insane people in York, England, that was founded by his grandfather William Tuke: “Many errors in the construction, as well as in the management, of asylums for the insane appear to arise from excessive attention to safety. … In the construction of such places, cure and comfort ought to be as much considered as security.”
Pause for a minute and think about the traditional doctor’s visit or clinic experience: A patient arrives, checks in at the registration desk, sits down in a chair or loveseat, and waits to be called back to an exam room. But what is that waiting period—and that traditional room full of chairs, flatscreens, and complimentary magazines—was gone?
“The days of the large bus-station style waiting rooms are over,” says Anita Rossen, senior designer at ZGF Architects (Seattle).
Most project teams rely on building information modeling (BIM) to assist in planning, designing, and troubleshooting a project’s above-ground systems.
Five years ago, the study “Demystifying First Cost Green Building Premiums in Healthcare” was released, showing that the capital cost premium for green healthcare design was 2.4 percent. “At the time, there were a lot of questions about [green and costs],” says Gail Vittori, co-director, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems.
One thing is for sure in our uncertain healthcare future: Big box outpatient centers are expected to play a bigger role in helping healthcare systems expand their patient base and enhance care. These spaces, which integrate ambulatory services in one location, help overcome expansion issues on crowded main campuses, where land is at a premium. Technology has also enabled more services to move out of the hospital setting to a building that’s more convenient to patients and less expensive to build. And patients seem to prefer them.
In this series, Healthcare Design magazine asks leading healthcare design professionals, firms, and owners to tell us what’s got their attention and share some ideas on the subject.
