Despite a persistently sluggish environment for hospital capital improvements, children’s projects—from new-build facilities to renovated units—continue to color the healthcare landscape. And while not immune to the industry’s belt-tightening, there’s one unique force that gives them an extra push: philanthropy.
When I recently asked a panel of healthcare technology gurus what their ideal environment of care looks like, it wasn’t a “homelike” space that they described. Rather, it was very literally “home.”
The Long-Term Care Spinal Cord Injury Facility (LT-SCI) at the VA Dallas campus was planned and designed to provide a home for multiple generations of veterans with spinal cord injuries (SCI) of varying degrees of severity.
Currently in development, construction documents for the facility have been completed. The project, which has been designed to meet LEED Silver certification, is waiting for congressional funding.
In my years here at Healthcare Design, I’ve always noted the appetite our readers have for details of government healthcare construction projects—and for good reason. I’ve heard it said that “as the government goes, so goes the rest of healthcare.”
Completion Date: Phase 1, seventh floor unit, October 2012; Phase 2, sixth floor unit, April 2013
Owner: University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital
Architecture: BWBR
Interior design: BWBR
Contracting: RJM Construction
Engineering: Dunham (MEP); VTI Security (low voltage)
Total building area: 31,300 sq. ft.
The idea: Located on the seventh floor of the University of Minnesota Medical Center’s Riverside East Building, the Child/Adolescent Mental Health program at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital faced a number of space challenges.
To start, double-loaded corridors offered little daylighting for interior rooms, as heavy doors closed in hallways and rooms and poor lighting filled corridors with shadows.
We know the “silver tsunami” is brewing—millions of baby boomers are growing older each day, requiring a sharp look by the healthcare industry at large at how their needs will be met in coming years.
Wayfinding is an inescapable component of healthcare design. And if you think it’s all about signage, there are at least two designers who’d likely tell you you’re dead wrong.
While no healthcare construction project can really be classified as “easy,” renovations of existing, operational facilities tend to come with the most challenges, from patient safety to infection control to maintaining desired census. Over recent years, firms have reported significant growth in renovations, as hospitals and health systems across the country bypass costlier new construction projects in favor of remodels.
The pediatric care environment is one that demands a thoughtful design approach to support both patients and family members. And while doing so has shown to improve outcomes, the necessity for it goes beyond the clinical realm.
In fact, offering everything from family accommodations to outdoor respite areas to amenities like laundry facilities is often what parents will weigh when choosing the location that’s best for their child, alongside the standard of care being provided.
It’s not an easy sell on paper: A 100-percent financially self-sustaining, mixed-use campus anchored by a community hospital, in an area on the southwest side of Chicago that struggles with high crime and unemployment.
But if anyone can sell it, it’s Guy A. Medaglia, president and CEO, Chicago Southwest Development Corp. and St. Anthony Hospital. In fact, he already has.
I’m in the process of putting together a trend report on children’s hospital design, which we’ll be featuring in our May/June issue of Healthcare Design. And while my sources have filled me in on topics ranging from how to design for multiple age groups to the move toward collaborations in operations, there’s one question I kept coming back to: Why do these projects continue to pop up across the country while the rest of the healthcare sector hasn’t quite seen that same kind of growth?
