A new garden filled with a profusion of plants on a second-floor terrace at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, Ore., provides a lush setting to test the impact—for patients, visitors, and hospital staff—of a therapeutic nature space on hospital grounds.
For many healthcare systems, running a hospital in addition to a long list of clinics can start to feel disjointed and inefficient, not only for patients but for clinicians, as well. NEA Baptist Health System of Jonesboro, Ark., knew that feeling all too well.
Clinic space planning and design are evolving to support the delivery of an enhanced, outcome-focused patient experience. Key factors driving this shift include the growing use of technology in care, the increasing complexity of specialty clinics, and the emerging medical home model. Additionally, reimbursement structures geared toward managing wellness instead of treating illness are driving more collaboration among caregivers.
The pace of healthcare reform over the past few years has been relentless, with plenty of new information and government programs that the design community has had to understand in order to better serve providers and patients.
While healthcare organizations have always faced the challenge of adapting their facilities to evolving services, needs, technology, and healthcare delivery models, the tempo of that change is accelerating.
In 2014, Weirton Medical Center implemented an electronic administration record system where nurses began charting patient information from computers on mobile carts. The 238-bed, non-profit, acute-care, general community hospital is located in the city of Weirton in Brooke County, W. Va. Weirton Medical Center offers health care services to the residents of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Opening its doors on Feb. 4, behavioral health not-for-profit Centerstone of Tennessee celebrated its new 18,090-square-foot outpatient facility on the six-acre Dede Wallace Campus in Nashville, Tenn. With the goal of improving its coordination of care and enhancing patient outcomes, the $6 million facility combines primary and behavioral healthcare services for children, adolescents, and adults—all under one roof.
Textural variety and colorful activity abound year-round in the Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s therapeutic gardens, thanks to the kinder, gentler weather of its Gainesville, Ga., location.
As designers, we bring years of collective expertise to a project, advising clients on the right choices for their new or renovated healthcare facility. Research plays a big part in this collective expertise.
In 2009, WellStar Paulding Hospital in Hiram, Ga., just outside Atlanta, was facing a dramatic growth in its local population, with an average 3.45 percent increase expected annually in Paulding County over the next five years. This reality pushed the need to consider replacing its existing 50-year-old, 32-bed hospital.
In 2012, the leadership for Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Mich., decided to address its confusing wayfinding system—again. They’d tried before in 2006, redesigning a system of colored floor lines into one anchored by public elevator cores and a new color/letter scheme to define locations. But between 2006 and early 2012, an incomplete rollout and a lack of internal education caused the program to languish, and complaints about wayfinding grew.
In an effort to contain rising employee healthcare costs and attract and retain talent, more and more corporations are opening up healthcare clinics right inside their office buildings.
