For Immediate Release: March 1, 2006
At Weston Medical Center, HGA Architects and Engineers' Innovative Architectural Solution Place a Joint Venture Diagnostic Treatment Center at the Heart of this State-of-the-Art Medical Facilty
Milwaukee, WI - A new medical facility in Wisconsin offers a model for cutting costs while improving the quality of the patient experience. In an architecturally creative, financially prudent move to fulfill the increasing health care needs of the growing population of north central Wisconsin, two major health care providers have joined forces to build the $92.5 million Weston Regional Medical Center in Weston, a suburb of Wausau, Wisconsin. In a joint venture between Ministry Health Care and Marshfield Clinic, the new 56-acre, 650,000-square-foot medical center was innovatively designed and engineered by HGA Architects and Engineers (HGA).
Strategically located along Wisconsin Highway 29 in Weston, the medical complex includes the 475,000-square-foot Saint Clare's Hospital, an 85,000-square-foot Ministry Medical Group - Weston office building with five primary-care physicians (the hospital and medical group are operated by Ministry Health Care); and the 90,000-square-foot Marshfield Clinic Weston Center, whose 50 physicians offer comprehensive primary, specialty and surgical care services.
Turning Traditional Hospital Design Inside Out. The joint venture aspect of the project is fully realized in The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center (DTC), a state-of-the-art technology and equipment hub in the middle of the medical center that both parties share, and within which all inpatient and outpatient diagnostic imaging, therapeutic services and same-day surgery take place.
"It's just the opposite of what I expect a hospital to look like, and it was absolutely the right thing to do," says Dr. Gary Zimbric, Marshfield Clinic Eastern Division medical director. "With medicine becoming so oriented toward technology, and hospital stays becoming shorter and shorter, the heart of a medical facility's operation is the ancillary services. HGA realized that, and uniquely and creatively incorporated that strategy into the new medical center."
The joint venture resulting in The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center was necessary to avoid a duplication of capital investment in cutting-edge medical technology, explains Jeff Martin, regional CEO, Ministry Health Care. It fostered "a collaborative partnership on the campus, which we agreed was critical to being successful in this market. We are all focused on making the patient experience as convenient and easy as possible, to avoid unnecessary anxiety and confusion."
Zimbric adds, "The goal from the beginning was to create an integrated complex that combined both inpatient and outpatient experience, and at the same time was cost-effective in avoiding unnecessary duplication of high-cost, high-technology support services like CT and MRI scanners, laboratories, cardio-diagnostics and radiology. The challenge was to place services in a location that would serve multiple populations."
HGA met that challenge by placing The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center and its diverse ancillary services at the core of the medical facility, and positioning other services - patient-care unit, emergency department, obstetrics department, outpatient clinic, cancer center and physician offices for seeing patients around the core with access to The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center's equipment and technology. "The net effect," Zimbric continues, "is that the ancillary services are the heart and soul of the facility."
Matching the Construction Grade with the Function Saves Even More. In designing the new "greenfield" startup in a rural location and the new venture in the health care market, HGA maximized effectiveness in the medical center's construction by placing suitable areas in less costly grades of construction.
For instance, the clinic, hospital administrative offices and many outpatient services were built in business-occupancy space, generating a 15 percent cost savings compared to traditional hospital-construction grade. In addition, HGA designed the integrated medical center as "tightly bundled, efficiently organized groups of services and spaces to save costs, increase staff productivity and provide patients with easy access to world-class care," explains Kurt Spiering, health care principal-in-charge for HGA.
A Streamlined Design Based on Research Leads to Streamlined Operations, Better Patient Experience. HGA's industrial-engineering department conducted mapping studies and nurse shadowing in other facilities to determine how much time and energy were spent in the day-to-day activities of patient care. From this research, Spiering says, "We designed the inpatient unit to work in the most optimal way for nurses, largely by decentralizing the traditional hospital's modes of operation."
For instance, HGA's research revealed that in a traditional hospital, nursing assistants clock about four miles a day over an eight-hour shift simply acquiring supplies.
"We cut that in half by decentralizing the supply stations to one to every four rooms, minimizing the distance - 15 to 20 feet maximum - any nurse or assistant has to go for routine items," Spiering says. In addition, a "racetrack corridor" runs around the 24 rooms on each floor in the hospital, giving nurses quick access to patient rooms.
"The design had to create space that allows staff efficiency and ease of traffic flow in and amongst the various entities on the campus, as opposed to creating silos that are difficult to navigate," Martin says. "That goal went into every aspect of the design, whether discussing entrances, reception areas or parking. We wanted the medical center to be truly integrated, with a focus on the customer experience," he added.
HGA met these needs with an innovative design formulated on "a logic and strategy for how elements of the medical center were oriented on the site," Spiering says. Emanating from the shared services core is a dual corridor system that provides double access to the ancillary services: an outpatient corridor on the front side, inpatient corridor on the back side. The outpatient corridor links The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center with occupational and physical therapy clinics, and the group-practice clinics and ambulatory care, which include cardiology, orthopedics, obstetrics, oncology, internal medicine, surgical specialties and urgent care.
The back corridor links The Diagnostic %26 Treatment Center with the inpatient, hospital or patient-care areas, including the intensive-care unit, obstetrics and emergency. Most of these areas, including the specialty clinics, have their own external entrances and parking lots, a design invention made possible by HGA's decision to put circulation on the perimeter of the facility. Still, those entrances all lead to the same inpatient or outpatient spine, with each specialty area made subtly distinct through design, to ensure easy wayfinding for clients.
In another design innovation, HGA created "variable acuity rooms" for the hospital, which allow patients to remain in the same place as their conditions change. Not only does this approach reduce strain and stress on patients, it saves staff time by minimizing intra-unit discharge charting, reporting and transport.
The Healing Environment. Throughout the interior of the medical center, HGA utilized "principles of evidence-based design," Spiering says, to ensure the decor fostered a healing environment.
Referring to case studies proving that abundant daylight, views of nature, and soothing colors and furnishings enhance patient healing and well-being, HGA designed a medical center environment that's "a respite, a place where patients can replenish mind, body and spirit," Spiering explains.
The nurses' well-being is also taken into consideration, with report stations located at the perimeter of the building, to provide them light-filled rooms "in which to retreat," says Spiering.
Daylight spills through windows into rooms and corridors. Natural stone, wood, fabrics and fiber art in the medical center's public spaces and open corridors "create an ambience that isn't institutional," adds Martin. Gathering areas with fireplaces and computer ports are inviting to family and friends, and look out over gardens and courtyards planned by HGA's landscape designers.
In the 107-bed, tertiary-level hospital, the private, universal rooms include built-ins that hide equipment. Sliding panels in the custom-designed headwalls, for instance, conceal medical gas and other equipment while providing easy access for staff. The footwalls, also custom designed, include space for patients to stow personal items.
"As physicians, we want our buildings as convenient and optimally functional for the staff as possible," Zimbric says. "We see the world from our perspective. HGA really helped us reverse that, because of the emphasis HGA placed on the patient experience. We learned to be sure the patient was foremost in the design," adds Martin. "The design makes the 'customers' happy, so it makes the work load of the care staff easier, too."
To create a seamless interface between staff, patients and medical information, Weston Regional Medical Center is also a "chartless" multi-specialty clinic and hospital; one of the few medical facilities in the world to have paperless medical records. Physicians and nurses have instant access to patient records through a wireless computer tablet linked to the state-of-the-art integrated electronic medical record, created by Marshfield Clinic.
Details of a patient's visit are immediately available to providers on campus, as well as throughout the Ministry Health Care and Marshfield Clinic systems.
Looking Ahead: Designed for Future Growth. With its high-visibility site, noninstitutional design, architectural innovation and all-digital medical records technology, Weston Regional Medical Center is setting a new standard for health care that will attract both patients and medical professionals to the growing community of Weston. Thus, HGA-designed the facility "to easily accommodate a phenomenal growth pattern," Spiering says.
Weston Regional Medical Center is expected to double or triple in size in the coming decades as it evolves into a regional referral center that meets the needs of a booming population.
HGA's architectural and engineering teams designed elements that will simplify future expansion and modernization projects. For instance, the campus could accommodate more than 200 additional inpatient beds, more than 200,000 square feet of additional office building and outpatient space, and structured parking. HGA also designed the facility's service core - elevators, mechanical systems, power plant and materials management - to be adaptable over time.
When people tour the building, they ask "how we're dealing with the future," Zimbric says. "HGA focused on designing our facility so it can grow over the next 20 to 30 years in a smooth and efficient manner, so we don't lose services or disrupt patient care along the way." Martin adds that he is also impressed with HGA's ability to "deal with multiple parties, and come to a common understanding and agreement that resulted in a building that's anything but disjointed."
"We wanted a seamless integration of entities, and HGA did that for us," adds Nick Desien, president and CEO, Ministry Health Care. "But HGA has also given us a spectacular design. The building fits very well in our locale.
And the interior is a very warm, soothing design that gives patients a sense of comfort and ease. Visit this place and you'll walk away thinking it's spectacular, and it will leave you with a sense of peace."
:: View Saint Clare's Hospital %26 Marshfield Clinic Weston Center
HGA Contact: Julie Luers (612) 758-4000 e-mail JLuers@hga.com
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