The healthcare industry is facing an epidemic of challenges to its business model. Its facilities as well as the baby boomer population, are aging concurrently, leading to a recent healthcare building boom that will continue for decades. Along with growth challenges...
I'm a big fan of the unknown. Adventures are part of what makes life interesting for me. Getting into the car on a vacation and just driving to see where you end up, being open to whatever it is that you'll find, often culminates in unexpected moments that you could...
Baltimore-based CSD Architects renovated the nursing unit at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, Baltimore, and the NICU at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland, with the projects completed a month apart in July and August 2006, respectively. Despite the...
Presbyterian Healthcare Services of New Mexico is in the process of designing a $205 million Greenfield campus. As a member of The Center for Health Design's Pebble Project Research Initiative, it is in keeping that the medical center plans are based on Lean...
For most people, entering a hospital is an unwanted if not traumatic experience: the dizzying bustle of doctors and nurses, technical jargon and hi-tech equipment, the confrontation with illness, death, and injury. Many feel a lack of control and a loss of their...
Today, many healthcare systems are looking closely at how patients, staff, and materials flow through their campuses. We hear often about Lean design and how its tenets aim to minimize costs. However, the reasons for looking at process flow are compelling and go far...
In today's consumer-driven market, patients are shopping for healthcare, just as they have always shopped for commodities. Technology can give hospitals a leading edge, because the right tools and equipment can improve patient satisfaction, increase safety, and even...
The Green Guide for Health Care (GGHC) is a sustainable buildings program, developed for the healthcare industry and built on the framework established by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program. With the GGHC program, a building...
Not long ago, Editor-in-Chief Richard L. Peck received a note commenting on the “Starchitects” editorial he had written for the May 2008 issue of HEALTHCARE DESIGN. It was from Tim G. Pennigar, lamenting from his perspective as a structural systems project manager for...
The National Health Service has hired a new kind of worker for its new acute care hospital in Scotland—the kind that doesn't mind dirty laundry nor is susceptible to infection. Yet these automated orderlies required some special attention in the facility design.
When the HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2008 Architectural Showcase jury gathered on an overcast May morning in a downtown Chicago hotel, the room was filled with optimism. In my own introduction to the judging process, I laid out our editorial goal as a “complete portrait of...
Two topics consistently come up with clients planning renovations or new construction at their acute care facility: designing a healing, supportive environment for patients, families, and staff and accommodating bariatric patients and family members. Here’s how to balance both needs via design.
