Life Saving Design

In 2004, the Center for Health Design, a research and advocacy organization based in Concord, California, provided a menu of actionable guidelines for building healthier medical environments. The Center’s study, “The Role of the Physical Environment in the Hospital of the 21st Century,” evaluated more than 600 studies that examined the influence design has on patient outcomes. “This is probably one of the more fundamental events that has happened in health care planning,” Hintz says. “The project looked at: What are good, healthy, productive health care environments that are improving patient outcomes? Can we isolate those things that are important and valuable so we can replicate them?”

This data arrived at an opportune time for health care organizations, which are building hospitals and medical facilities at a near-frenetic rate to keep pace with the needs of an aging—but long-lived—baby boomer population. According to FMI, a construction research firm based in North Carolina, health care construction is expected to exceed $45 billion annually by 2009, up from $34 billion in 2005.

As the health care industry produces a new generation of hospitals and clinics, individual providers—including several local companies—are turning to architects with the specialized skills and experience needed to turn out lifesaving designs.

“We need to be working with someone who knows more than we do,” says Ray Piirainen, director of real estate for Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services. “You want to make sure you’re working with people that do a lot of this type of work, and a lot of work that is on the leading edge.”

Experience is Essential

Health care architecture, Hintz notes, is a specialty, like orthopedics or cardiology. “I think the savvy health care clients understand that and appreciate that,” he says.

Perhaps the most significant difference between a medical facility and, say, an office building resides under the “skin.” “The interior build-out is far more intense in your typical medical office space,” Pobuda says. Medical facilities commonly are composed of many small exam rooms or offices, each of which has its own plumbing and heating and air-conditioning controls.

“The more small rooms you have, the more difficult it is to control the environment,” Piirainen says. “If you have an open office landscape, or if you’re dealing with a big shopping center or a big-box retailer, the air just circulates.”

Then there is the intricate tapestry of codes and regulatory requirements relating to the specialty areas—radiology, surgery, laboratory, emergency departments, birthing centers, and the like—within a health care environment. Various areas have specific minimum requirements for air changes per hour to ensure that fresh air is consistently moving through spaces. Rooms that house high-tech equipment must maintain specific humidity levels to safeguard the health of the pricey technology. Generally, operating room temperatures must be confined between 68 and 73 degrees.