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.
Pursuing LEED is the best investment you can make in building new, says Breeze Glazer, associate, research knowledge manager, Perkins+Will (New York), and Gail Vittori, co-director, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (Austin, Texas). Why?
Waiting is a major part of the hospital experience. “The patient is waiting to go home, the family is waiting to get test results,” says Erin Peavey, researcher and medical planner at HOK (New York). “Everybody is waiting their time out. So what is that experience like from these different perspectives?”
While some community landmarks improve the local landscape with artwork that’s nice to view, Good Samaritan Regional Health Center, in Mt Vernon, Ill., installed a piece that appeals to residents’ eyes and ears. A new entry bell tower on the hospital campus is reminiscent of an old Catholic church bell tower and is filled with approximately 50 bells that play whenever the wind blows.
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, Dan Stanek, executive vice president at Big Red Rooster, a multidimensional brand experience firm in Columbus, Ohio, talks about the shifting marketplace, integrating healthcare and wellness under one roof, and using technology to enrich the consumer experience.
With so much emphasis on the patient experience, it’s no wonder that hospitality-like amenities, environments, and services are finding a home in healthcare.
A study by Health Research Institute at PricewaterhouseCoopers reports 72 percent of consumers ranked personal experience as a main factor when choosing a medical provider. Patients today know they have options and providers are on notice to deliver a higher level of personalized service and satisfaction or risk losing loyalty and ultimately revenue.
Five years ago, Mercy Health was planning a new 645,000-square-foot community hospital on the west side of Cincinnati that would offer inpatient services, ambulatory clinical needs, and an expanded cardiology program. The 250-bed facility would also incorporate three designated bariatric rooms with adjoining bariatric toilet rooms; dual-leaf, 5-foot-wide non-corridor doors; operating tables with 600-pound weight limits; a CT scanner with a bariatric table; and 600- and 1,000-pound patient lifts in ICU rooms.
To launch its first London reproductive and sexual health center that’s open seven days a week, England’s National Health Service (NHS) engaged designers and architects from outside the healthcare specialty in a competition to create a new space for its Burrell Street Clinic (London).
