Covenant Health System started its environmental journey in 2003. The Catholic not-for-profit, which is headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, is made up of 14 facilities: nursing homes, hospitals, and assisted-living residences. Greening elder care has much overlap with acute care facilities, including energy, water, and waste opportunities, but some big differences also exist, including the absence of operating rooms and a residential community within the campus.
Amidst recent economic downfalls, changes in healthcare legislation, and continual turnover within the administration of federal healthcare programs, the healthcare industry is tightening budgets and looking for ways to get the biggest bang for its buck. For healthcare interior designers, this means modifying services and offering clients different options to fulfill both short-term and long-term needs.
Anyone who owns a home can’t help but feel for the people who end up on episodes of HGTV’s "Holmes on Homes." If you haven’t seen the series, it basically takes a superstar home inspector and matches him with homeowners who have fallen victim to shoddy inspections resulting in some serious damage to their real estate investments.
This is an exciting time for residential care design, as new architectural models bring great promise for enhancing the way elders relate to their physical environment, their families, caring staff, and other residents. Architects and designers are reassessing the built environment and creating innovative designs with the aim of improving health outcomes, quality of life, social interactions, and the overall efficiency of care delivery.
This new approach will be even more important as the aging community experiences rapid growth in the coming years.
The Healthier Hospitals Initiative (HHI) is a national campaign to implement a completely new approach to improving environmental health and sustainability in the healthcare sector that was kicked off April 3, 2012.
It’s no secret that healthcare as an industry is one of the worst offenders when it comes to energy consumption. And a new organization is taking that statement a few steps further, adding on the enormous use of water, cleaning products, chemicals, and food.
About 10 years ago, I was privileged to be part of the publishing team that founded HEALTHCARE DESIGN. It was an offshoot of a very successful publication we had started in the long-term care field, the DESIGN series of annuals that had grown out of regular coverage of long-term care design by Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management magazine (now known as Long-Term Living).
The already code-laden healthcare environment may find new flexibility coming down the pike, at least in terms of designing and constructing sustainable facilities, with the recent introduction of the 2012 International Green Construction Code (IgCC).
The simulation concept has long been used in many industries; aviation, military, and nuclear power facilities. These have used simulation to recreate complex scenarios that are either physically or financially impossible to otherwise accurately duplicate.
Now that list includes healthcare, as many fields, such as anesthesia and laparoscopic surgery, have started to require simulated training, and as a result, the technology has evolved at an accelerated pace.
Healing gardens have become an almost mandatory part of today’s modern healthcare environment. This environment provides patients—as well as their family and friends—with a peaceful respite during their treatment and care.
As a result of the popularity of healing gardens, some professional landscape design companies are actively providing new and innovative ways for hospitals and healthcare practices to add new dimensions to their outdoor healing spaces. One of these new nuances is the edible healing garden.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Winter 2012 issue of Healthcare Building Ideas (HBI) and the ongoing editorial features posted here on our website, because there is plenty more on its way.
Alive is the culmination of several years of collaboration between Hayes Green Beach Hospital and the local community in Charlotte, Michigan, to develop an innovative, experiential health and wellness concept. Born out of a fairly simple need for the local hospital to expand medical services, Alive is an integrated approach to healthcare that seeks to promote true lifestyle change.
