St. Anthony North Health Campus, Westminster, CO

Firm's role on the project: Create a non-traditional ambulatory-focused care environment. 
 

To create a non-traditional model of an ambulatory-focused care environment that incorporates evidence-based design concepts and supports Centura Health’s ability to deliver human-centered care services across the full continuum of need.

With this new model, Centura Health is seeking to move beyond the walls of the traditional hospital,  creating instead a health and wellness campus focused on providing an environment conducive to prevention, education and treatment, while embracing Planetree and evidence-based design principles.

Being built around the existing medical pavilion, the expansion’s primary design challenge was to visually establish a wellness approach. The new building includes a 282,000-square-foot hospital and ambulatory care center attached to an integrated 58,000-square-foot physicians’ office building. The connection to the existing freestanding emergency department, outpatient imaging and medical offices needed to be seamless and efficient operationally for true integration.

Another challenge was to design ways to include evidence-based design strategies, e.g., the incorporation of daylight into patient care areas and creating opportunities for patients, staff and families to have outdoor exposure.

The new 96-bed facility is based on a model that fully integrates outpatient services and physician practices with inpatient services and the existing facility. The new hospital and ambulatory care center connect to the integrated physician office building in a seamless manner with shared elevators, registration and access points. Design supports the integration and physician alignment on particular floors, while also providing both front-of-house and back-of-house connectivity between physician offices and the outpatient service lines, and/or beds.

For maximization of daylight into the patient rooms, individual bathrooms on patient floors are inboard to allow as much glass as possible on outside walls. This also created the opportunity for a more visually private patient room. Multiple outdoor spaces were also created for patients, staff and visitors to relax and recharge. For example, indoor dining extends to an outdoor healing garden that contains a fountain and fireplace. A prayer garden, adjacent to the chapel and convenient to the ED, is provided in the courtyard between the new and existing buildings.

Although the hospital’s NICU has only a few beds, Centura Health made a commitment to provide all private rooms rather than curtained bays. Privacy allows the babies and parents more opportunity to bond. A patient room with a traditional bed is included, allowing families to better transition to home at the end of their stay.