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Once again, the 2008 PDC enabled hospital administrators,
facility engineers, clinical staff, architects, engineers,
contractors and researchers the opportunity to come together and
discuss how to plan, design and construct innovative healthcare
facilities in a pro-active, high-energy environment.
Over the course of three and a half days, attendees were challenged
to explore their passions to improve healthcare for patients,
families and clinicians. Various venues (including plenary
sessions, concurrent sessions in seven tracks, technical exhibits,
parties and receptions) featured the latest services, products and
technologies for healthcare planning, design and construction, and
the conference was one of the largest exhibit of healthcare
projects shown to date.
The Venue: Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention
Center, Orlando
In addition to the scheduled conference activities, the Orlando
area provided many positive distractions for conference
attendees: a space shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center
early Tuesday morning, spring training baseball, DisneyWorld as the
centerpiece of an array of theme parks, and of course, the balmy
weather and nearby beaches--perfect antidotes to the raging winter
throughout the country. The Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention
Center, itself a themed destination, allowed attendees complete
resort services without having to venture beyond its walls.
Plenary Speakers:
The first two plenary speakers, Dr David Suzuki and Andrew Winston,
addressed the subject of sustainability from dramatically different
angles. Dr Suzuki focused on our need to find a sustainable role in
the world, in order for life to flourish. His presentation, "The
Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line,"
challenged us to re-assess our priorities and fit into the world.
Andrew Winston aimed at practical benefits to contemporary business
bottom line in his presentation, "Green to Gold: How Smart
Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate Create Value and
Build Competitive Advantage." Citing corporate examples from Toyota
and Herman Miller to Wal-Mart and UPS, Mr. Winston showed how
companies have been able to find a sustainable center with benefits
to the bottom line and their brand. The final plenary speaker,
James Bentley, PhD, AHA Senior VP for Strategic Policy
Planning, shared the AHA’s outlook on the political landscape,
homeland security and strategic design issues in “Looking
Forward… How Developing Trends Will Impact Facilities.”
Dr. Bentley reported that hospitals may suffer funding reductions
as part of the a budget reduction effort, and have been largely
overlooked by Homeland Security’s Critical Infrastructure
Protection Programs. He also discussed key design issues for
architects in the future : Nursing Efficiency, Flexibility and
Adaptability, Energy Efficiency, Changing Demographics, and
Disaster Preparedness.
Concurrent Sessions:
Organized within seven tracks: AIA Forums, PDC,
Research/Think Tank, Constructor, Healing Environments, Industry
Drivers, and Sustainability, the sessions presented case studies,
research and innovative processes to improve planning, design and
construction. A sampling of presentations from each track:
AIA Forums: This year each session included one of
the nine Forums (Health Environment Research, Neuroscience and
Architecture, Technology, Architects in Healthcare Organizations,
Therapeutic and Sustainable Environments, Codes and Standards,
Design, Health Facilities Strategic Planning Team and Emerging
Professionals) and presented discussion groups of their interest
areas.
PDC: A comprehensive analytical approach to
evaluating the costs of alternate methods of future expansion
(renovation, shell construction and eventual fit-out or vertical
expansion) was presented in "The Real Numbers: The Cost of
Flexibility."
Research/Think Tank: The fifth presentation in
“How the Icons have Fared” series. This year’s Icons
were: Banner Estrella Medical Center by NBBJ, in Phoenix; St.
Luke’s Woodlands by HGA, Memorial Katy by WHR and Methodist
Sugarland by HKS, three suburban expansions in Houston designed by
HKS; and Community Hospital of Monterey, originally designed in
1962 by Edward Durrell Stone Architects and recently expanded by
HOK Architects. The review of Community Hospital of Monterey was
particularly interesting, a hospital that still qualifies as an
example for the future.
Constructor: Project case studies of the completed
SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St Louis and
SSM St Clare Health Center in Milwaukee (currently in progress)
presented how an Integrated Project Delivery process can enhance
communication, performance, and financial results utilizing the
Lean Construction in "What? No GMP? Integrated Project Delivery:
The Real Results of Lean Construction, or Design and Construction
Projects You Will Enjoy."
Healing Environments: "Acoustically Designed
Environments" emphasized the benefits of quiet spaces for patient
care, healing and staff effectiveness and presented technical and
design examples to address room noise levels, communication privacy
and facility noise.
Industry Drivers: "Sustaining the Practice of
Medicine as We Know It" explored a facility and care model for
MidPatients, minimally invasive surgical patients and chronic
disease care management patients with a average length of stay
greater than 23 hours and less than 72 hours. Recommendations
included dedicated units, a patient-centered care model that
maximizes patient encounters and reduces travel distances for
supplies, increases information throughput.
Sustainability: "Designing the Carbon Out "
provided design processes and easy to use design tools to assist in
designing facilities to reach the AIA’s 2030° Challenge
for all new buildings to use 50% less fossil fuel and progress to
carbon neutral facilities by 2030.
Exhibitors and The Exhibit of Architecture for
Health: Once again, the PDC provided an impressive display
of healthcare architecture for participants to see the most recent
examples of projects in nearly all varieties of healthcare design
and construction. Along with hundreds of vendor displays, the
exhibit hall included a mock-up of a prototype The Green Patient
Room presented by Anshen+Allen, in conjunction with the IFMA Health
Care Council and Skanska. This completely built patient room
offered attendees the opportunity to walk through and be educated
on all the practical, cost-effective steps to combat energy waste
and improve patient health.
Participants in this year’s conference received a flash
drive with copies of many of the presentations.
If you missed the 2008 PDC, or any of the sessions, ASHE is now
offering enhanced post-conference educational recordings at
ASHE’s Live Learning Center! See http://www.ashe.org/ashe/education/2008pdc/index.html.
Don’t miss next years PDC in Phoenix, AZ, March 8-11, 2009,
for an extraordinary opportunity for learning, networking and
sharing with other members of the health planning, design and
construction industry.
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