For Immediate Release: September 9, 2008
Keeping Up With The Community - Fairview Lakes Medical Center Addition and Renovation Fills Critical Need
Minneapolis, MN - The much-anticipated 116,750-square-foot expansion of Fairview Lakes Regional Medical Center in Wyoming, Minnesota, provides the high-demand facility with the state-of-the-art technology, diagnostic, surgery and patient-care support the staff requires to meet the growing demand for health-care in Chisago County, the sixth-fastest-growing county in Minnesota.
Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers (HGA), Minneapolis, the 69,000-square-foot addition includes a signature curved, steel-and-glass, two-story entrance for the facility's north side that compliments the modern aesthetic of the existing building. The new entrance also provides a light-filled, welcoming, atrium-like lobby and waiting area for the new emergency and urgent-care departments, as well as a variety of diagnostic services and outpatient surgery. The renovation of another 47,750-square-feet of existing space includes a remodeled birthing area, a relocated intensive-care unit, expanded diagnostic imaging, and expanded areas for emergency and urgent care, surgery and patient rooms.
While the Fairview Lakes Regional Medical Center is only 10 years old, the facility's "demographics keep going through the roof," says Dennis Vonasek, project manager, HGA. "The staff was seeing about 50,000 emergency patients a year in a space designed for 20,000. They had an urgent-care piece folded into the existing space that didn't work well. And they had outpatient-surgery needs that were significantly higher than they'd built for."
The median age for residents in Wyoming, which is considered part of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area, is 32.5 (younger than the average age in the United States). Families (non-single residences) represent 82.9 percent of the population, giving Wyoming a higher-than-average concentration of families. The number of babies delivered at Fairview Lakes Medical Center increased from 528 in 1998 to 894 in 2007.
In 2004, the estimated population in Wyoming was 48,349, an increase of almost 18 percent from the 2000 census. To address the health-care needs of this dramatically growing population, the number of employed physicians at Fairview Lakes has increased from 40 in 1998 to nearly 90 today; hundreds more enjoy privileges to practice in the facility.
When the original medical center was constructed in 1998, administrators "anticipated future expansion, but the growth of the community and changes in technology spurred the need to grow at a pace much more rapid than expected," Vonasek says. While additions to the campus in 2000 and 2003 provided more space for radiation therapy and urgent, emergency inpatient and obstetrical care, as well as an assisted-living facility, demand continued to outpace capacity.
By adding to the medical center's existing site--the buildings are encircled by a loop road, giving the facility a contained, campus-like feeling--HGA created a secondary entrance that aesthetically compliments the original medical-mall concept, while providing the facility with a dynamic new entry for the emergency department and for surgery and diagnostic patients. HGA's design also incorporates into the new expansion and renovation current standards required by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which weren't in existence a decade ago.
In addition, HGA instituted safe-handling procedures for patients, and lean, cost-effective and energy-conserving work processes that improve staff performance and the patient experience. "Our key challenge," Vonasek says, "was to address the facility's needs as they exist now, but also in the future as the community continues to grow and its citizens require state-of-the-art healthcare, whether they're newborns or in need of geriatric care."
Sweeping Entrance. Fairview Lakes Medical Center asked that the design and materials of the addition and new north entrance not diverge aesthetically from that of the original building and its primary, south entrance. "Because they were seeking continuity with the existing building, which has a clean, modern aesthetic, we attempted to replicate that aesthetic by referencing some of the geometry and materials of their south facade, while using higher-quality materials that are available today," says Amy Douma, project designer, HGA.
The distinguishing characteristic of the addition is the new north entrance with its two-story, glass-and-steel curved form with cantilevered metal roof. Metal panels clad the steel canopy and steel frame of the glass entry box to enhance the structure's clean, contemporary aesthetic. "The site was fairly tight because of the campus's circular shape and the loop road around it, so we couldn't use columns to support the entry canopy," Douma explains.
"Instead, the roof is supported from the interior of the building and cantilevered out to create a floating, hovering effect, while the beams continue on through the interior of the atrium," she adds. Inside the atrium, residential details like stacked-stone planters connect the light-filled interior with the landscaped exterior, "helping to break down the feeling of an exterior wall, even if it is glass," Douma says. Clerestory windows tucked along the back of the canopied entrance bring sunlight deep into the interior of the open, airy lobby.
Light-toned brick walls bookend the addition on the exterior. On one side, the light-toned brick wall intersects with red-brick walls and the glass-and-steel framed egress stair that rises, tower-like, from the site. "The stair form acts as a 'signage opportunity' to help those entering the site from the north find their way to the emergency department and surgery entry," Douma explains. "The stair tower, when lit at night, also functions as a beacon for those entering from the south (as most patients do) to help them find the new entrance."
Another light-brick wall rises from beside the new entrance, and divides the busy emergency hub from the low, red-brick addition that stretches along the other end of the site and houses surgery and diagnostics. "Because we needed to connect the expansion to the existing building's circulation," Douma says, "we added a major corridor that cuts through the facility and attaches the main public spaces at both the north and south entrances." A palette of warm earth tones including brown-red and dark blue-green connects the two spaces in an understated way.
To further aesthetically integrate the interiors of the new and old spaces, HGA retained the light wood tones of the 1998 building in the divider walls that section off waiting areas in the new north lobby for emergency and day surgery. "Our charge was to design the new entrance lobby at a human scale that would offer people who are waiting a sense of privacy," explains Christine Vickery, senior interior designer, HGA.
The dividers, a combination of light and dark wood tones, "warm up and section off the lobby space into smaller, more intimate areas that offer waiting patients or family members more comfort and privacy," Vickery continues. "People can now pick a quiet, tucked-away place in the lobby if they need optimal privacy." She also designed three types of seating in the new lobby--armchairs, lounge chairs and two-seating sofas--to accommodate different needs for privacy, gathering and conversation.
The welcome desk was designed to focus people's attention as they enter the two-story lobby space, while bringing the large, curved, light-filled volume down to a more human scale. The desk area is framed overhead by a curved soffit from which clusters of three, residential-scale pendant lights hang. A glass wall behind the desk, subtly back-lit with softly colored lighting, adds an integrated art element to the lobby area and welcome desk.
"Since Fairview Lakes Medical Center was first built, there's been a revolution in health care due to a new focus-on patient wellbeing, and personal connection between patient and provider," Vickery says. "Our design of the new north lobby reflects those changes in quality and approach to patient care."
Innovative Space Planning. Inside the facility, HGA integrated existing, renovated and new areas of the building to maximize workflow and efficient patient care. For instance, the intensive-care unit was re-located adjacent to the new emergency department and observation area. While bringing inpatients from the second floor to the ground level initially posed some challenges to security and staff who found their usual routines disrupted, "having the three areas interrelated and next to each other is a better layout that facilitates easier, more time-effective workflow processes when dealing with complex patient types," Vonasek says.
In another innovation, HGA designed the emergency department to be comprised of three "pods," Vonasek explains. The most heavily used pod, critical care, is located just beyond the ambulance garage and next to the trauma, psychiatric and cardiac rooms. The next pod is for mid-level emergencies, Vonasek continues. Near the front entrance is urgent care, which Vonasek says "can be expanded on demand into mid-level or critical if necessary and depending on volumes."
HGA also included in the facility's imaging and diagnostics areas a built-in MRI (the facility's first), an additional CT scan, and private waiting spaces that are gender specific. Imaging, for instance, now has its own women's waiting area next to mammography, to create a smaller private department within the larger imaging department.
HGA's renovations of existing areas included widening the corridors in the surgery area, including more private bays, and introducing natural light through windows facing landscaped areas outdoors. An expanded labor and delivery area now includes eight new patient rooms and a nursery, areas for family support, and an education space.
Since its initial construction in 1998, Fairview Lakes Medical Center has been in an almost constant state of change and expansion, while endeavoring to provide high-quality care to its community. With the HGA-designed, 2008 expansion and renovation of the medical center, Fairview Lakes is now poised to serve its rapidly growing community with state-of-the-art healthcare delivered to the highest standards.
HGA Contact: Julie Luers (612) 758-4000 e-mail JLuers@hga.com
Media Contact: Susan Evans, Evans Larson (612) 338-6999 e-mail susan@evanslarson.com