The new 28,000-square-foot pediatric emergency department at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., designed by Mahlum Architects, opened in January 2013. Tucked among several existing structures, the facility creates a recognizable new entry to the campus behind its “emergency red” exterior.
Of the architects and designers who read Healthcare Design, many (most? all?) have worked in other disciplines outside the healthcare space. Residential, hospitality, retail, education… they’ve dipped their toes in a variety of waters, and many of them still do. I’ve immersed myself in a range of design disciplines over my journalism career, as well, from packaging design to retail and hospitality interiors and now, of course, healthcare architecture and environments for aging.
The new $12 million Health Simulation and Technology Center at Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) in Appleton, Wis., provides career training to new and existing healthcare professionals in nursing, medical assistance, health information technology, occupational therapy, and personal care. The center’s design integrates sophisticated technology, such as human simulators, to help students better prepare for real-world situations.
No matter how much work you put into planning, designing, and constructing a space for healthcare, once you turn the keys over to the facility, all bets are off. You can design the world’s most patient-centered, aesthetically pleasing, community-serving, staff-supporting, and operationally efficient space ever known to mankind.
Fortius Sport & Health in Burnaby, British Columbia, is the first fully integrated sports medicine, science, and training venture in Canada. It brings together an interdisciplinary team of sports medicine professionals committed to best practices in prevention, performance, treatment, education, and research, housed in a 148,000-square-foot facility.
Embryo Clinic Assisted Reproduction is a 5,600-square-foot IVF unit in Thessaloniki, Greece, completed in September 2013. The facility, designed by local firm MALVI, was completed in four months and provides outpatient care for couples from all over Europe seeking fertility treatments in a highly specialized environment.
The School of Osteopathic Medicine at Campbell University, North Carolina’s first new medical school in 35 years, is designed to offer flexible and collaborative spaces that integrate technology to foster a dynamic learning experience.
Various studies have attribute healthcare outcomes (patient falls, satisfaction) to a vague notion of patient room visibility. Until 2010, however, no evidence existed that this was the case. “Relationship between ICU Design and Mortality” (Leaf, Homel, & Factor, 2010) was the first study to implicate patient visibility, defined as seen or unseen from the central nurses' station, as a factor influencing patient mortality. Yet the definition of “visibility” remains imprecise.
The 14,000-square-foot UMass Memorial Cancer Center at the Marlborough Hospital has opened a new Cancer Pavilion.
The weighing of words—choosing the right words, in the right order, for the occasion–has always fascinated me. This probably comes as no surprise, considering my chosen occupation. I’m perpetually striving to find the clearest, most elegant, and most effective way to make my points. Hell, it took me 10 minutes just to write that first sentence.
Spodak Dental Group’s new building in Delray Beach, Fla. is an 18-operatory comprehensive dental care facility. Design began in June 2012, construction started in April 2013, and the entire project was completed in December 2013. The 13,000-square-foot, biophilia-inspired facility is LEED Gold certified. It includes patient care suites, laboratory space, offices, gathering spaces, six healing gardens, learning center, waiting area, and support spaces.
The new 11-story, 820,000-square-foot Cedars-Sinai Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion, which opened in June 2013, combines patient care, clinical offices, physician education, and training and research in a single building. The facility was designed by HOK.
