How Can Healthcare Facilities Use Design To Enhance Experience? Learn More At Bisnow’s Feb. 22 Event
For many people, going to a healthcare facility is nerve-racking enough without having to also worry about difficult-to-navigate building layouts and sitting close to others in a cramped waiting room.
Commercial real estate designers and architects have developed creative solutions to streamline the layout of healthcare facilities, incorporating features like natural light to help increase mood, wayfinding to guide patients to where they need to go or installing window tints to enhance privacy.
EwingCole, a Philadelphia-based architecture, engineering and interior design company, partners with healthcare facilities to create spaces that reflect the needs of today’s tenants and help them in their mission to provide exceptional care. EwingCole Principal Oscar Gomes said that since patients have a breadth of options for where to receive their care, building designs have become more patient-centered.
“We want to make sure that the design of our waiting rooms and areas are not only comfortable and private, but also offer a sense of control for the patients who are receiving care and the family members that are with them,” Gomes said.
Gomes will be in attendance at Bisnow's Philadelphia Healthcare Summit on Feb. 22, which will cover how design and technology can contribute to creating a more seamless experience for patients. He will also be speaking on the Transforming Healthcare Spaces For Tomorrow’s Needs panel.
In a conversation with Bisnow, Gomes shared the considerations that building designers should keep in mind when building modern healthcare spaces and the elements that make up a successful project.
Bisnow: What design elements and wellness amenities are essential for today's healthcare facilities? And how can they contribute to a patient's well-being and comfort?
Gomes: Smart design and wellness amenities have become essential for healthcare facilities. With biophilic design, for example, incorporating natural elements like plants, daylight and water features into healthcare facilities can help reduce stress, improve mood and promote healing. In the past, if designers were proposing a rooftop garden it would be the first thing to get value-engineered. Now, we’re seeing healthcare leaders insisting on those elements.
Architects and designers prioritize the notion of sensory design, from how to bring in visual elements like color, lighting and artwork to acoustics and wayfinding. If we can’t use natural lighting, one strategy is to opt for high-quality artificial lighting that mimics the qualities of natural light.
Bisnow: How can architecture firms create spaces with scientific advancement in mind?
Gomes: We always have to be looking forward in terms of how we design spaces, and the key is to design flexible, adaptable and technologically-integrated spaces that can evolve with science. One thing we do is to work closely with our research group to stay abreast of emerging trends.
There's a lot of discussion around how to create flexible spaces to accommodate telehealth. The way that we deliver telehealth today may be very different from how we do it a few years from now. It’s important to design spaces that can be easily reconfigured to accommodate new technologies and changing healthcare needs.
We’re also starting to see smart technologies being used in the buildings, collecting data and optimizing the building operations and improving patient safety with the ultimate goal of delivering better care.
Robots have also been assisting in healthcare, not just in operating rooms on the clinical side, but also with more mundane activities, like delivering items to the patient rooms, materials management and assisting family members and patients navigating the hospital. These technologies require adequate power supply, data connectivity and sometimes even structural support for heavy or specialized equipment.
Bisnow: How does EwingCole work with healthcare clients to bring their vision to life?
Gomes: Within our healthcare studio, we design buildings and environments to lift the human spirit and are focused on the patient and staff experience. You can't separate the staff from the patient; if the staff is happy, the patients are likely to receive better care.
The building emerges from the programmatic needs of the project, is driven by the vision and ultimately made possible by the resources. Success in the project happens when these three drivers come into perfect harmony. You can have a building that has a lot of resources, but if the vision and programmatic needs are not aligned, the project is going to fall flat.
Healthcare clients tend to be very complex. There are a lot of stakeholders and people who have very different views and perspectives on what a project should be. Collaboration is important. We listen to our clients’ needs but also bring fresh perspectives to help elevate the design. We spend a fair amount of time on the front end to develop each project’s vision. We treat all our projects, regardless of size, with the same level of care and curation.
Bisnow: What are you looking forward to most about attending the Philadelphia Healthcare Summit and speaking on the Transforming Healthcare Spaces For Tomorrow's Needs Panel?
Gomes: We're looking forward to being in a setting where we can learn from our peers. We all come to the panel with very different experiences. Not just life experience, but also different professions and perspectives about our industry.
Having all of those different points of view and a true diversity of thought can help to elevate not just the design and the projects themselves, but also our industry as a whole, which is a specific subset of construction and design. It’s an area that has a very profound impact on people in a direct way.
This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and EwingCole. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.
Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.
