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Last week I held a seminar for the National Association of Women in Construction entitled “Minimizing the Effects of Natural Disasters Through Innovations in Design and Specialty Products Panel.” The format was an interactive discussion between the panel and the audience on the affects of natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and power loss.

Since there were several higher education and healthcare facility representatives in attendance, we discussed the risk they currently...

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In my experiences as a Director of Facilities Management (FM), I have found that most people have no idea what facility management actually means and how it can benefit their healthcare, higher education or research facility (no, I do not have anything to do with FM radio stations). Facility management helps an organization solve four main problems:

1. Simplify maintenance response issues to fix things faster and cheaper
2. Improve operations planning to prioritize and allocate funds for budgeting
3. Create...

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Hurricane Sandy has wreaked havoc on the East Coast, shutting down businesses, schools and hospitals. Proper planning and design elements can help mitigate some of the risk that natural disasters present hospitals and other facilities. BSA LifeStructures has designed a FEMA-Best Practice flood mitigation technique to remove the risk that flooding presents to a facility.

In 2008 a 500-year flood hit Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Ind. The flood caused $171 million in damages to...

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The healthcare system exists to serve one person—the patient. There are hundreds of articles and speculation on the hospital of the future, patient-centered care, and the patient room of the future. I thought it would be fitting to talk about the patient for which we are planning and designing facilities of the future. 

Let’s meet Tom, one of the 61 million baby boomers projected to need health services over the next 20 years. Tom is his mother’s caretaker, a husband, father, grandfather,...

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Healthcare executives across the country are facing questions on how their organization can improve patient satisfaction and, as a result, scores on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. The importance of patient satisfaction results have evolved since the introduction of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—better known as healthcare reform—which affects hospitals’ reimbursement partly based on scores they receive on the HCAHPS....

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While patients should be the primary consideration when designing a healthcare facility, they can’t be the only consideration. Better outcomes rely on creating a facility that considers everyone who enters it, from the people who work there to the people who stop by for a visit.

With this in mind, as it designed the Lakeland HealthCare inpatient pavilion, the team at BSA LifeStructures looked beyond the obvious patient concerns and added features that, at first glance, might not seem to serve the...

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Meet Todd Gill. He was my cousin (through marriage) and a great guy. Being a landscape architect in Madison, Wisconsin and avid lover of the outdoors, he spent many hours in the garden, enjoying life and designing wonderful spaces for others to enjoy as well. Although he often wore sunscreen, he did not wear it on his sideburns. That’s where he found it – skin cancer. Todd was diagnosed in August and lost his battle with Melanoma this past week. It is a loss we all feel deeply, not only as a...

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We are all shaped and motivated by the experiences we endure. Those experiences, as challenging as they may be, teach us and push us to transform our future. 

This blog examines the hospital experience from the perspective of the patient's family and the hospital designer. The family member experience is based on true events and is told by Kitts Christov (KC). The insights provided on hospital design are provided by architect Megan Burgess (MB).

A day in the life, and what it could be.

1:00 A.M.... Read More »

While this subject may initially sound mundane or pedestrian (forgive the pun), by implementing some key site design considerations, the safety, security and convenience can be improved for pedestrians as they negotiate through the site at a healthcare facility. To understand how to best design for users of a facility, we must first analyze the various pathways, travel and needs they may have. At healthcare facilities, there is a wide range of physical disabilities that need to e considered...Read More »

The Accountable Care Organization is really Accountable Care People.

The ACO is a fundamental building block of the Patient protection and Affordable Care Act. The essence of the ACO concept is that hospitals and physicians will work together to control costs while improving patient care. Sounds good, but how does the system work? Since 1966, the more the better in terms of financial rewards.

So much attention is devoted to hospital-physician integration and it always seems to be about money....

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In many industries, we study the past to understand the future. Most of the time, there is a negative tone stating something like "we are destined to repeat the same mistakes if we don't understand the past." However, the utilization of lean design in healthcare and research facilities is all about process and system improvements.

The notion of lean design in healthcare is one with many positive tones and proactive attributes. In fact, the very nature of the lean design analysis and process is...Read More »

Planning ahead is a good strategy for healthcare architecture, but it isn't always easy or inevitable when clients are focused on the bottom line. We can only advise and hope they consider the advice seriously. BSA LifeStructures has recently assisted a former client in their effort to sell their facility. The issue was hospital licensure.

Physician groups and hospitals follow different rules when it comes to performing healthcare-related activities within a facility. In short, hospitals are held...

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