It's been happening more and more across the country—hospital mergers or closings. Usually there's been careful planning, talks, and forethought dedicated to the final event. However, in most instances, the biggest outcry comes from the local community. Community members may not realize the cost of running or building a hospital, but they are emotionally invested.
Over the next decade and beyond, healthcare cost reduction will be a critical focus area for provider organizations. When considering the physical design of care environments, an immediate impulse in relation to cost reduction is to economize on space—and many of us are already witnessing that dialogue in the post-recession healthcare market.
The resulting vision of the new-generation healthcare setting is one that is smaller, and employs extreme measures to audit space needs.
Over the last several blogs, I have looked at design elements that define a successful pediatric facility, from the radiology unit to the emergency department, and the private patient room. Children have unique healthcare needs that require unique design choices.
Here are six design considerations that define a well-planned pediatric unit:
Family spaces
During the past 17 years, I have witnessed a significant change in the economies of several emerging Latin American countries. I have seen how the growing middle classes are now migrating from the public healthcare systems and seeking access to the few private healthcare providers available, which are operating over capacity.
Cultural changes always come unannounced and uninvited. They sneak in with some shiny new technology or protocol that we embrace to make our work easier and our lives better. They come in bits and pieces so it takes a while to recognize them for what they are.
As we begin working with these new technologies and protocols, we slowly realize that the traditional ways we relate to each other don’t quite work anymore. Tension follows. So we invent new ways.
After some months in the making, the HEALTHCARE DESIGN team is proud to present our readers with a new (and we think improved) Website, our new home for all the healthcare design and architecture content we can muster.
Project category: New construction & Remodel/Renovation (completed September 2011)
Chief administrator: M. Ted Wong, Major General, Commander, Southern Regional Medical Command, BAMC Chief, US Army Dental Corps.
Firm: RTKL Associates Inc., (888) 337-4685
Design team: Wayne Barger, Executive-in-Charge; Alan Sneed, Project Director; Robert Ting, Lead Designer; Michael Kennedy, Project Manager; Ramon Villalba, Project Architect (RTKL Associates Inc.); Eurico Francisco, Lead Designer (Devenney Group Ltd.)
Recently, HKS and Herman Miller conducted a study to identify the challenges and impediments to operational flexibility within the built environment. Interestingly, three out of the 11 impediments to operational flexibility are related to the use and implementation of...
There is a virtual vise applying significant pressure on hospitals today. On one side is the desire to improve patient outcomes, which supports evidence-based design and can be a key criterion in pay-for-performance compensation. On the other side there is increasing competition as users view everything from physicians to facilities through the eyes of the savvy consumer, requesting better care, more amenities, and the kind of customer service that has traditionally been associated more with hotels than hospitals.
Photoraphy courtesy of: CollinsWoerman.
Providers that continue to sit on the fence about adopting Lean processes in their operations can look to the bottom line for evidence of need. This article, the second of a two-part series, explores how to remove waste and what effects the need for Lean processes will have on design.
Survival strategy: Remove the waste
It’s Moving Day! Actually, it’s been moving month as we activated and moved in our clients at a wonderful regional medical center, opening a new 295,000-square-foot nursing tower. We have been keeping an “issues log” throughout this process, and I thought you might...
Our profession is transforming. The traditional definition of “architect” can no longer be described by the B141 definition of Basic Services. Over the last decade, the healthcare architectural community has changed as much as any. We have adopted dozens of terms,...
