Archinect - News

Passion for medical projects? Flad Architects is hiring several Healthcare Planners

2024-11-06T10:32:00-05:00

Following our previous look at an opening for fellowships at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore open roles on Archinect Jobs for Healthcare Planners at Flad Architects, who are currently hiring for 37 positions across the country.

The positions in Raleigh, Tampa, New York, Madison, and Gainesville, call for individuals who will be responsible for master planning, programming, and developing large, complex medical facilities. The ideal candidates will have a minimum of 15 years of recent experience in master planning, programming, and developing medical projects, alongside a thorough understanding of codes and standards related to healthcare facilities.

Novartis Holly Springs. Image courtesy of Flad Architects

Why the role interests us

The open positions for Healthcare Planners at Flad Architects offers us the opportunity to explore a selection of completed healthcare projects by the firm, t...

Ennead and Dattner share first SPARC Kips Bay images ahead of 2031 completion

2024-05-13T17:01:00-04:00

Ennead and Dattner have shared preliminary project visuals to accompany the latest announcement of their winning bid to deliver the Science Park and Research Campus (or SPARC) Kips Bay to the East Side of Manhattan.

The project for the New York City Economic Development Corporation will culminate with a new 700,000-square-foot academic building to be used by three separate CUNY schools and a new high school for STEM careers. Close to two million square feet of educational spaces are being planned overall, and the project development will be complete with a new pedestrian bridge that fosters a connection to the East River waterfront.

Preliminary project visual. Image courtesy Ennead Architects + Dattner Architects

Ennead Partner Thomas J. Wong (the project's Design Lead) shared: “We bring a commitment to civic space, along with deep experience creating leading healthcare and education facilities to our work for SPARC Kips Bay, where, together with Dattner, we will develop an innovati...

Studio Libeskind completes new Maggie's Centre design in London

2024-02-05T18:57:00-05:00

Studio Libeskind has completed work on its design for a new Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment facility at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

The 4,886-square-foot design follows well-known contributions from Foster + Partners, Steven Holl, and Heatherwick Studio as an example of its client’s mission to provide patients with world-class settings in which to receive their care. The project is now the 24th Maggie’s Centre completed in the UK since 1996.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

The studio says its design is arranged for the free-flowing movement of patients and their caretakers while giving equal consideration to the needs for both privacy and socialization.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

In terms of building form, the Centre is curvilinear in contrast with the surrounding brick-and-mortar buildings on the NHS campus. The design was realized on a small plot that was once a parking lot. As such, its volume expands upwards from the ground floor clad in weathered timber panels and sheathed in glaz...

Foster + Partners and CannonDesign lead reimagination of Mayo Clinic campus in Minnesota

2023-11-30T11:53:00-05:00

A team comprising Foster + Partners, CannonDesign, and Gilbane Building Company has designed a major healthcare addition to Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota. The project, titled 'Bold. Forward. Unbound. in Rochester' features two new high-rise clinical buildings at the center of the campus.

The new buildings measure nine stories to reach a height of 221 feet, with the potential to expand to 420 feet over time. A new central point of arrival is created by the buildings, with north and south drop-offs converging at a unified main entrance.

Above the central arrival point, a sky bridge horizontally links the two new buildings with the existing Gonda Building to improve wayfinding and circulation. The sky bridge is also part of a double-height ‘social ame...

Arquitectonica reveals designs for new $1 billion mixed-use project in Miami's Medical District

2023-09-26T19:36:00-04:00

Arquitectonica has been selected as the master planners and designers of a new $1 billion mixed-use healthcare development in Miami, the firm announced via a press release today.

Site preparations will begin this year on the seven-acre Highland Park Miami development in the city’s Medical District. The plan for clients The Allen Morris Company and Black Salmon will increase the district’s total area by approximately ten percent, transforming it into the second largest such development in the country.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

Arquitectonica says the scheme will also include space for 1,000 residential units delivered by Oppenheim Architecture in addition to 500,000 square feet of medical offices and a new 150-room hotel. Local firm Naturalficial will also deliver a landscaped corridor at a previously underutilized area abutting the site, which is located within 400 feet of the nearest Metrorail station.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

“With Highland Park, we’re creating a n...

3XN shares new Copenhagen Children's Hospital images ahead of 2026 opening

2023-08-16T13:57:00-04:00

3XN has shared photos of their nearly complete Copenhagen Children’s Hospital project in the Danish capital.

Spanning 58,000 square meters (about 624,300 square feet), the design will yield a total of 219 beds for children, teens, and pregnant women, 15 operating rooms, 57 ambulatory care suites for children and adolescents, another 30 for adults, 14 delivery rooms, and a nuclear diagnostics center.

Once it opens early next year, the hospital will have a capacity for 900 persons in addition to 1,200 staff. The firm says its design is meant to harness the power of play as a palliative measure and will be completed at a cost of $350 million for its client, the Capital Region of Denmark.

Image: 3XN

Formed by two asterisk-shaped volumes meant to evoke the image of a pair of widespread hands connected together at the wrist plate, the bays inside the individual "fingers" in the design are bookended by winter gardens at the tips and share a central core reserved for family lounge...

OSD’s new South Cato Springs development provides nurturing space for neurodiverse adults in Arkansas

2023-06-28T18:57:00-04:00

A new neighborhood-scale development from OSD aimed at enhancing the lives of neurodiverse adults has broken ground outside of Fayetteville, Arkansas following a special ceremony held this week with the firm and its client, a local nonprofit organization called SLS Community.

Their master plan for a mixed-use and mixed-income tract called South Cato Springs will eventually endow the region with a workforce housing micro village that also features dedicated space for a new center for the University of Arkansas Medical School, recreation, and agricultural areas all surrounding a central town square on a plot located near Kessler Mountain Regional Park.

Image courtesy OSD

The firm says it will become an example of a concept it calls “mindful urbanism,” offering itself to the community as both an empowering care space and elevating pedestrianism that is built from and deeply rooted in the rich natural landscape surrounding its idyllic 230-acre site.

Image courtesy OSD

This objective will ...

CannonDesign and Foster + Partners picked to design Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center expansion in NYC

2022-11-17T14:04:00-05:00

A joint team of CannonDesign and Foster + Partners has been selected to design a new high-rise pavilion for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan’s Midtown East neighborhood.

Design details are still being finalized, but the structure will stand a minimum of 30 stories in height and leverage Cannon’s expertise in modular construction techniques in order to deliver a “pioneering medical facility that will be at the forefront of innovation and patient care.” The project is said to help meet MSK’s “evolving cancer care needs over the next century” and add a more modern, 200-bed facility connected to the institution’s main building at the corner of E. 66th Street and York Avenue.

Foster + Partners explains: “The Pavilion will create incredible human experiences within and beyond the Pavilion walls for patients, their families, and staff. The building will help MSK attract and retain the very best cancer clinicians, researchers, and staff in the world.”

Related on Archinect...

J. MAYER H. unveils ZIPPER - RKM 740, a new hybrid healthcare-residential tower in Düsseldorf

2022-10-14T15:49:00-04:00

J. MAYER H. has shared photos of their new ZIPPER - RKM 740 Tower project in Düsseldorf. Overlooking the Rhine on the former campus of the Dominikus hospital, the new high-rise development includes residences and healthcare facilities inside a 22,000-square-meter (237,000-square-foot) structure whose synergy they say serves as a “prototype of a hospital for the future.”

Photo: David Franck

The facade’s perforated metal curtain provides the zipper reference through a series of gradual openings that can be flexibly adapted. The arrangement of the facade also works to provide shade and wind protection to the structure, whose program is split into two 6- and 14-story volumes defining both the medical functions and housing component, respectively.

Photo: David Franck

Per the architects: “The dynamic, organic shapes of the building rise like clouds of mist towards a thin volume at the top. It seems to grow in horiz...

Dodge Momentum Index drops slightly in August as Q4 approaches

2022-09-08T18:46:00-04:00

The latest Dodge Momentum Index report from the Dodge Construction Network shows a slight drop of 1.2% from July’s revised record peak of 174.0, driven by declines in the institutional sector that were spurred on primarily by a decrease in healthcare projects when compared to last month.

Overall, the Index is up a dramatic 14% when compared to last August’s totals, with an additional 16% increase in the commercial component and 10% rise in the institutional sector being recorded year-over-year.

Graphic: Dodge Construction Network

The Index recorded a total of 26 projects numbering $100 million or more, led by Juan Gabriel Moreno Architects/HOK’s $400 million office towers project in the West Loop of Chicago, the forthcoming $300 million Sungate Logistics Park in Florida, and $360 million Scripps Mercy Hospital expansion in San Diego.

Previously on Archinect: Construction starts skyrocketed in July, driven by nonresidential and nonbuilding projects

“In spite of weak institutional plann...

Renzo Piano’s trio of new hospitals in Greece will stand as 'modern design templates' in a changing world

2022-08-08T16:40:00-04:00

$750 million will bring a trio of much-needed modern hospital designs to Greece by way of Renzo Piano. This set of hospital projects is in collaboration with Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Health Initiative, which aims to deliver new hospital infrastructure and public healthcare in Greece. Elianna Konialis, lead of the SNF Health Initiative, shared with Nate Berg of FastCompany that the goal of these hospitals is to “improve access and quality of care in regions that are underserved.”

The city of Greece is a decade removed from the country’s plunge into economic and social calamity over public debts that have now rendered much of the healthcare system outside of Athens either inadequate or obsolete.

Ariel view of SNF University Pediatric Hospital of Thessaloniki. Image render courtesy Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

The Pritzker-winning architect and his firm have been tasked with the design and delivery of new facilities in Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta. The hospital in Thes...

Northwestern Medicine announces $100M+ outpatient center in Chicago's Bronzeville

2022-06-03T15:09:00-04:00

Northwestern Medicine plans to spend more than $100 million to build a 120,000-square-foot outpatient care center in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood — after facing past criticism that it hasn’t done enough to serve patients on the South Side.

If approved by the state Health Facilities and Services Review Board, the proposed medical facility will be positioned on the 4800 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue. The center would include an immediate care center, primary care, specialty care, pharmacy services, mammograms, lab tests, chemotherapy, and programs to promote community health. It is expected to serve more than 50,000 patients a year. In addition, the project is expected to create 1,000 construction and 100 healthcare and related jobs. Construction could begin in summer 2023 with a scheduled opening in summer 2025.

The proposal aligns with Chicago Mayor Lightfoot’s $1.4 billion INVEST South/West program, an initiative that aims to revitalize 12 commercial corridors within 10 South and West Side community areas. As detailed by the Chicago Tribune, Northwestern has faced criticism for its prioritization of investment in higher-income areas, rather than lower-income communities of color. While Northwestern Medicine dis...

BIG designs ‘folding’ neuroscience center to mimic the cerebral cortex

2022-03-16T10:58:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels Group has unveiled its design for a neuroscience center in Aarhus, Denmark. Described by the studio as “the first of its kind in the world,” the 19,000-square-meter (200,000-square-foot) facility will be used by Aarhus University Hospital to study and treat physical and mental brain diseases.

Image courtesy of BIG

Spread across six levels, the center’s floor plan “folds” around a collection of atria echoing the folds of the cerebral cortex, creating a series of small clusters and courtyards. The ground floor sees patients and guests enter through a large open atrium at the core of the building, which also contains an interactive public exhibition area, café, and public courtyard.

Image courtesy of BIG

While the building will host several distinct departments including neurology, nuclear medicine, and psychiatry, each with their own unique requirements, the floorplan has been arranged to allow common functions to act as “crossbreeding” elements. In addition to encouragin...

Designing healthier spaces through data: How one firm uses spatial analytics to shape new job opportunities for architects

2022-03-02T09:06:00-05:00

Traditional architecture firms aren't the only viable employers worth exploring as designers and architects continue to navigate the job market. New and exciting job opportunities with unique architecture adjacent practices continue to emerge with businesses seeking the expertise of individuals with architecture backgrounds. Pair this with advances in AR/VR, visualization modeling, and data analytics architects are finding new ways to approach healthcare, housing, and commercial projects.

Take the Cambridge-based spatial analytics company Spatio Metrics for example. Its founders, Sonal Singh and Jim Peraino, have combined their business, wellness, and architecture backgrounds to develop a company that "helps architects and their clients analyze floor plans and bridge the gap between design, data, and human performance."

Image courtesy of Spatio Metrics.

Both MIT graduates, the duo founded their company in 2019 and has gained attention as a startup that uses spatial analytics, visuali...

Herzog & de Meuron-designed hospital clad in terracotta revealed for UC San Francisco

2022-01-04T12:56:00-05:00

UCSF has released images of their proposed Helen Diller Medical Center, designed by Herzog & de Meuron in collaboration with HDR Architecture. The 15-story hospital will be constructed on UCSF’s Parnassus Heights campus, with 336 inpatient beds, diagnostic and treatment services, clinical support services, and public areas spread across the 900,000 square foot facility.

In addition to constructing a new hospital, the project will see the renovation of the existing Moffitt and Long hospitals, which when combined with the new building, give the campus a total of 682 inpatient beds. The upgraded capacity is in response to the region’s rising healthcare needs, with 3000 patients turned away from the campus hospital in 2019 due to a lack of beds. The renovations are also part of an effort to bring the entire site in line with earthquake safety standards.

UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center. Image by Herzog & de Meuron

“In designing this hospital, we are re-imagining the space around it, c...

A ‘hospital of the future’: Foster + Partners opens new medical school building at UPenn

2021-11-19T09:00:00-05:00

With the spiritual and material well-being of its next-generation patients in mind, the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine has opened an inpatient facility from Foster + Partners and others that is being heralded as a “hospital of the future.”

Located on Penn’s historic West Philadelphia campus, The Pavillion is the university’s answer to the growing body of scholarship that supports a patient-oriented approach to care that is embodied in its design and functionality.

“The new Pavilion is designed to completely redefine the future of healthcare,” Norman Foster said. “The building enables innovations that reflect University of Pennsylvania’s history of medical firsts, creating a truly flexible facility that molds itself to the needs of the patient. Responsive, adaptable and future-proof, it will allow the hospital to continue its crucial life-saving work and remain at the cutting edge of patient care.”

The University indeed h...

SOM reveals plans for a new public health laboratory in Harlem

2021-07-23T18:26:00-04:00

If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the health of Black and Hispanic communities is being systemically underserved in large part due to an infrastructure gap that has left both urban and rural parts of the country bereft of key resources in a time of crisis.

In keeping with this pressing need, SOM unveiled plans this week for the new New York City Public Health Laboratory in Harlem that will replace an existing facility in Kips Bay owned by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new $400 million laboratory will host a range of services addressing both clinical and environmental concerns in an adaptive scheme that can change focus to ascendent public health concerns as they come along.

SOM’s state-of-art structure, which last month was honored by the Public Design Commission’s Award for Excellence, rises from a three-story masonry podium into a prominent cubic volume containing first essential functions as well as community-facing accomm...

Snøhetta and HGA selected to design new Parnassus Research and Academic Building at UCSF

2021-07-16T16:40:00-04:00

Snøhetta and HGA are teaming up to design the new Parnassus Research and Academic Building (PRAB) at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

The approximately $700 million project will anchor a redesigned west end of the campus. The building is being accompanied by extensive site improvements in the surrounding area and a new hospital planned for the east end of the Parnassus Heights campus. Together, these projects are part of phase one of the Comprehensive Parnassus Heights Plan, a sweeping multi-decade revitalization of the campus.

The PRAB project will replace UC Hall, UCSF’s oldest building at Parnassus Heights, which was built in 1917. Preliminary plans for the building call for a 270,000-square-foot space with wet labs, computational labs, modern classrooms, and a nursing school, all supported by open spaces and other public realm improvements. 12,000 square feet will be set aside for education, allowing graduate students to work in labs and attend classes under ...

Construction Casualties: The Deadly Cost of Skyscrapers for Immigrant Laborers

2021-03-22T16:35:00-04:00

Across the United States, construction workers were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not to diminish the hardships and sacrifices of other essential workers and industries affected by the pandemic, Susannah Jacob of the Atlantic highlights the ongoing dangers and overshadowed accounts of construction laborers, specifically immigrant laborers.

Along with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, her piece "The Dark Side of America's Gleaming Skyscrapers" expands on working conditions and on-site casualties. "Immigrant laborers have been dying tragic, sometimes grisly deaths on construction sites across the country. These deaths rarely make news, but they tell the story of an industry indifferent to the lives of its workers."

Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels

Within her coverage, she recounts the stories of Eric Mendoza, Nelson Salinas, Gregory Echevarria, Juan Chonillo, Carlos Moncayo, and Mario Salas Vittorio. How their deaths, along with countless others, are examp...

Get Lectured: The University of Kansas, Fall '20

2020-10-30T17:57:00-04:00

For the Fall The University of Kansas' School of Architecture & Design collaborated with the school's Institute for Health + Wellness Design to develop a series of lectures addressing health care design.

Archinect's ongoing Get Lectured series features each school's lecture series and their graphic design prowess with graphic lecture posters.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Their "Grand Rounds" lecture series dives into healthcare design during and after the current Covid-19 pandemic. KU Associate Professor of Architecture Keith Van de Riet shares, "Amid the pandemic, this timely lecture series brings academic and industry leaders currently navigating the technological, social and environmental factors that are forever changing architectural research and practice,

Broken into three discussions the first round of lectures took place on Sept 10th focusing on Covid/Care/Community. Speakers such as Ra...

Healthcare construction workers need better training, researchers say

2020-04-30T14:21:00-04:00

After previous studies showed that patients in healthcare facilities were becoming ill due to dust generated by construction activity researchers from Washington State University and Clemson University asked 129 construction managers and field supervisors from the top healthcare contractors in the US for details on their training programs. According to Construction Dive's Kim Slowey, "only 52% of those surveyed said that owners of healthcare projects always or often required construction teams to receive training about how to perform work safely in or near occupied healthcare facilities, but 77% said that such training was typically required at the start of projects."

Previously on Archinect: Researchers urge additional construction safety measures during COVID-19

But, most of these training programs are geared toward upper management and often exclude or minimize the training time offered to workers and subcontractors who have closer contact with patients.

Dust and debris created by...

Carlo Ratti Associati complete COVID-19 medical pod prototype

2020-04-21T11:51:00-04:00

Carlo Ratti Associati has completed and installed the first unit of CURA in Turin, Northern Italy. Previously reported on Archinect, we reported on the project, which stands for "Connected Unites for Respiratory Ailments" was spearheaded by Carlo Ratti Associati and Italian architect Italo Rota. The concept utilized shipping containers to develop a modular system of pods for treating COVID-19 patients. Met with confusion, some were uncertain of the feasibility of the proposal, but now the first steps have become a reality.

The plug-in Intensive-Care Pods converted from shipping containers have come to fruition in just four weeks following their initial launch. The speed of the design and production effort come as a result of an international task force that, in addition to designers from Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rato, include engineers at Jacobs and health technology company Philips for medical equipment supply.

Initial concept renderings.

With the goal to improve the efficie...

Composite shelters being developed to aid hospitals in COVID-19 testing and treatment

2020-03-31T15:28:00-04:00

The new Tupelo shelters are designed to be easily and strategically combined with additional rigid-walled Tupelo shelters as well as soft tent shelters. [...] the new shelter’s dynamic design can adapt to fit needs in healthcare for treatment and testing, and perhaps in the evolving classroom setting as well. The shelter can be “flat-packed,” meaning the shelter walls can be stacked on top of each other for high-volume, rapid transportation to affected areas.

Rhode Island-based Core Composites, a leading company that has built and designed advanced composite-based, rigid-wall shelters for the U.S. military, is working to quickly develop an easily deployable shelter that can be used for COVID-19 testing and treatment, and to aid over-capacity hospitals.

Carlo Ratti and collaborators propose CURA: emergency COVID-19 medical pods inside converted shipping containers

2020-03-30T17:47:00-04:00

In an effort to rapidly boost effective medical response to the devastating COVID-19 outbreak, an international network of architects, engineers, doctors, military experts, and NGOs have developed an open-source solution to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Units. A first prototype is currently being developed in Milan, Italy where the pandemic has hit especially hard.

The project, called CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments, and also "cure" in Latin), was initiated by Italian architect, engineer, and director of MIT's Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti with fellow Italian architect Italo Rota.

Image courtesy of CURA/Carlo Ratti Associati.

"CURA is a compact Intensive-Care pod for patients with respiratory infections, hosted in a 20-foot intermodal container with biocontainment (thanks to negative pressure)," explains the project description. "Each unit works autonomously and can be shipped anywhere. Individual pods are connected by an inflatable structure...

German military to build 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital in Berlin

2020-03-19T15:38:00-04:00

The Berlin government said on Tuesday it would create a new hospital to cope with a likely huge increase in coronavirus cases. The facility, which will house up to 1,000 patients, will be set up in the Berlin Messe trade fair exhibition grounds in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of the German capital. The hospital will be built with the help of the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr.

As the coronavirus outbreak rapidly expands also in Germany, officials in Berlin hope to prevent potential bottlenecks in the capital's hospital system with a new medical facility specifically for COVID-19 patients. The country now has more than 10,000 confirmed cases — the third highest in Europe after Italy and Spain.

Earlier this year, the impromptu construction efforts in Wuhan, China made headlines when two emergency specialty field hospitals with a combined capacity of 2,300 beds were erected in a matter of only days. The round-the-clock endeavor was streamed live by Chinese state media and attracted a huge audience of citizens that had been ordered not to go outside for several weeks.

While Wuhan is racing to build two new coronavirus hospitals within days, millions watch the construction streamed live

2020-01-29T15:27:00-05:00

Medics in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people where the virus originated, have described overcrowded hospitals and a shortage of test kits, protective gear, and other medical equipment. To alleviate this pressure, city authorities last Friday announced plans to build a new hospital from scratch in just six days, to be used beginning February 3.

Chinese officials are under increasing pressure to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus which has already claimed the lives of at least 130 people and is quickly spreading around the world.

The epidemic originated in Wuhan, the most populous city in Central China and home to more than 11 million, where authorities have begun erecting two large emergency hospitals that are set to be commissioned on February 3 (Huoshenshan Hospital with a 1,000-bed capacity) and February 5 (Leishenshan Hospital, 1,300 beds), respectively.

Live stream, click the play button to view. Via CCTV

Chinese state media has been live-streaming the round-the-clock construction efforts, and huge audiences have been closely following — a mild boredom relief for millions of people that have been advised not to go outside to limit the chances of contagion.

Still from the construction live-stream on January 30 (local time). Source: CCTV

Shanghai Daily reports that "netizens have been carefully scrut...

Housing as a prescription for homelessness

2019-11-12T18:59:00-05:00

By early next year [UnitedHealth Group] expects to house 350 homeless Medicaid patients whose annual health-care spending, while they’re on the streets, exceeds $17 million. The goal is for them to “graduate” within a year to paying their own rent.

Bloomberg Businessweek profiles UnitedHealth Group's efforts to reign in healthcare costs by providing high-cost patients with housing. The approach comes as the connections between a lack of housing and extreme healthcare costs come into sharper relief between these adjacent industries.

The health company recently partnered with Phoenix-based non-profit group Chicanos Por La Causa to purchase and upgrade 500 housing units that rent for as little as $609 per month, according to Bloomberg Business. The group's holdings include The Residences at Camel Back West, a mixed-income housing complex that offers market-rate and below-market rate housing options.

UnitedHealth's efforts mirror those of Denver Health Medical Center and the Denver Housing Authority, two entities that have partnered to refurbish a defunct hospital structure into 15 senior housing apartments in a similar bid to bring housing and healthcare to needy populations.

Hospitals build apartments to assist housing-insecure patients

2019-10-02T19:45:00-04:00

Legally and morally, hospitals cannot discharge patients if they have no safe place to go. So patients who are homeless, frail or live alone, or have unstable housing, can occupy hospital beds for weeks or months – long after their acute medical problem is resolved.

Hospitals with housing-insecure patients are getting creative in an attempt to both provide more holistic care for their patients while also reducing overall patient and hospital costs. It can cost upwards of $2,700 to spend a night in a hospital, according to a USA Today report, an amount that could be better spent on conventional housing options.

The trend comes as changes to federal guidelines dictating how tax-exempt hospitals channel their charitable contributions make investing in housing easier for these organizations. In Denver, for example, the Denver Housing Authority recently partnered with a the Denver Health Medical Center hospital to refurbish a mothballed building into 15 senior housing apartments.

Peg Burnette, the hospital’s chief financial officer, told USA Today, “This is an experiment of sorts. We might be able to help better their lives, as well as help the financials of the hospital and help free up capacity for the patients that need to come to see us for ac...

Snøhetta's Outdoor Care Retreats offer respite to patients at Norway's largest hospitals

2019-01-07T19:19:00-05:00

Hidden in lush forests that are within walking distance from two of Norway’s largest hospitals, the Outdoor Care Retreat is a group of secluded wooden cabins that offer patients a relaxing space to enjoy the therapeutic benefits of nature. Designed by Snøhetta on behalf of the Friluftssykehuset Foundation, the cabins let patients get a break from rigorous treatment routines. Plus, a change in environment can help long-term hospitalization feel a little more manageable.

The Friluftssykehuset Foundation initiated the Outdoor Care Retreat project and developed it with the Oslo University Hospital's Department of Psychosomatics and CL-Child Psychiatry and Snøhetta. The Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services opened the first Outdoor Care Retreat at the Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet last June. A week later, another Outdoor Care Retreat opened near the Sørlandet Hospital Kristiansand in southern Norway.

Outdoor Car...

A 1950's replica town in San Diego aids patients with memory therapy

2018-09-17T14:12:00-04:00

On August 13, a brand-new town in Southern California welcomed its first residents [...] on a light-industrial stretch of Main Street in Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb. Then they emerged in Town Square®—a 9,000-square-foot working replica of a 1950s downtown, built and operated by the George G. Glenner Alzheimer’s Family Centers. Unlike the businesses around it hawking restaurant supplies and tires, Town Square trades in an intangible good: memories.

The new 50's replica town in San Diego is the largest US investment in reminiscence therapy for dementia and age-related cognitive impaired patients. The industrial warehouse has been transformed into a fake town of 14 storefronts complete with a diner, a movie theater, a pet store, a park-like square, and a city hall. Patients are aided in therapy by props from the years between 1953 and 1961. Several other locations are forthcoming, the next planned for a former Rite Aid in Baltimore.