The UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Medical Building—a hybrid academic and community outpatient surgery, oncology treatment, and medical office facility—is a 50,000-square-foot facility designed by Michael W. Folonis Architects (Santa Monica, Calif.). The Modernist facility began seeing patients in early 2012.
When you run an annual conference—especially one as big as ours—the planning never really stops. As soon as one year’s conference wraps up, you’re working on next year’s. And after months of behind-the-scenes content wrangling and planning meetings, it’s exciting to get to the point when you can start sharing details with the rest of the world.
The journey for the Bill Holmes Tower began in 2005. Throughout its 50-year history, CHOC Children’s Hospital (Orange, Calif.) had relied on a partnership with adjacent St. Joseph’s Hospital for access to surgical, laboratory, imaging, and emergency services for its patients. The hospital wanted to improve the family experience by broadening its care and bringing comprehensive treatment under its own roof.
At Stanford University’s School of Medicine (Palo Alto, Calif.), clinical trial researchers were scattered across multiple buildings, some of which were off campus. The opening of the new Jill and John Freidenrich Center for Translational Research in October 2012 brings researchers and clinicians together under one roof, a short walk from Stanford Hospital and Clinics, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and other Stanford research facilities.
A 54-year-old pronouncement known as Roemer’s Law says that the more beds a hospital has, the more beds it will use. The statement has been widely cited by healthcare policy influencers as a reason for facilities to be required to justify their number of beds as a way to contain healthcare costs—to avoid, presumably, any subconscious tendencies to hospitalize patients whether they really need it or not.
It’s enough to make you want to get your tonsils out again. The Royal London Children’s Hospital (London) recently unveiled a truly larger-than-life play area featuring an interactive game called Woodland Wiggle, designed by artist Chris O’Shea and digital production company Nexus Interactive Arts.
The Good Samaritan Regional Health Center is a 382,000-square-foot replacement hospital in Mt. Vernon, Ill., designed by BSA LifeStructures. The 134-bed hospital, was completed and occupied in January 2013. Measurable improvements are expected across a number of safety and performance benchmarks established by the hospital, such as:
The germs are getting stronger. On March 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a press conference on carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae—CRE—and the threat these deadly bacteria pose to patients and staff in healthcare facilities. Taking steps to keep CRE out of the community at large is a top priority.
Centralized nurses’ stations were the go-to model for hospitals in the past. Then the pendulum swung the other way, and decentralized designs proliferated. But it’s still not a black-and-white debate: There are benefits and drawbacks to both models, and a lot of times, it comes down to the most human level of connection. While more numerous decentralized stations may arguably create better, more frequent connections between nurses and their patients, there’s another side to that coin. Nurses want—and need—connection with their peers, as well.
Completed in November 2012, the Helix Forensic Psychiatry Clinic in Flemingsberg, Sweden, just outside of Stockholm, will serve sentenced violent offenders. BSK Arkitekter (Stockholm) designed the facility for property manager Locum. The security demands are of the highest priority. The complex will also serve as a healthcare facility that regards the integrity of the patients, provides a calm environment, and offers caregivers an efficient and enjoyable workplace.
Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative’s Puyallup Medical Center was looking to create a medical home model while expanding its portfolio of clinics and enhancing or replacing existing clinic facilities.
The use of a hybrid OR—a single room that’s fully equipped to merge imaging and surgery—has been show to lower mortality rates and reduce complications and time spent in the hospital, according to Terry Miller, BSEE, executive vice president for Gene Burton & Associates (GBA; Franklin, Tenn.). There are currently about 100 U.S. hospitals with hybrid OR capabilities, and it’s projected that that number will grow 15 percent every year over the next decade.
