Healthcare Design - April 2014 - 40

menting with different solutions, Mullinax has
found children's playrooms to be quite effective.
For example, his team designed one for a hospice facility in Bloomington, Ind., with access
through a 4-foot-high door so that the children
would feel like it was "their" space.
As for the teenagers, Mullinax says spaces
with access to computers and recliners with
attached DVD players and headphones have
been the most successful. "This gives them a
place to go off by themselves, do homework,
or watch a movie, and not be distracted by the
serious activities that are constantly going on in
these facilities," he says.

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area within each patient room that can be used
as a living room by day and as a family sleeping
area at night.
"Access to an Internet connection, refreshments, and meal preparation areas are now
three must-haves that weren't necessarily incorporated just a few years ago," WBRC's Whitney
says. Additional in-room amenities include
ample furniture, space for family members'
personal belongings, shower access, laundry
facilities, in-room refrigerators, microwaves, a
coffee pot, and sometimes even a second TV
with pillow speakers.
"Unlike a hospital room where the patient
moves as quickly as possible, a hospice room
offers encouragement to spread out and to
linger," says Ila Burdette, principal, Make3 Architecture (Atlanta).
Outside of the patient room, other building
features can be added to enhance the family's
experience, such as exercise rooms, a library,
sunrooms, meditation areas, private alcoves,
and comfortable family room and living roomtype seating. "We're seeing the use of more and
more therapy areas, mostly manned by volunteers, that could be used for hair care, massage,
or acupuncture," Mullinax says.
Although much attention is centered on the
family's privacy, facility designs also aim to
create spaces where people will naturally cross
paths, such as a larger dining area. "This serves
as a 'melting pot,' allowing families to come
close and share counter space, providing a
launching pad for conversation and friendships,"
Mullinax says.
Hospice care also needs to meet the needs
of visiting children and teenagers, who are likely
to become bored or restless after spending
extended periods of time in the building. Experi-

Dealing with the inevitable
An inherent function of hospice facilities is to
care for patients until death and after, requiring
careful planning for on-stage/off-stage areas
to transport deceased patients discreetly. This
can be challenging in smaller facilities, but it is
possible. For example, in designing the OSF
Richard L. Owens Hospice Home in Peoria, Ill.,
Spellman Brady added extra exits to each residential wing in order to provide back-of-house
egress paths.
In other cases, facilities can transport deceased patients through the chapel, through
staff support areas, or through an exterior door
directly connected to a patient's room.
"However, many hospices embrace the
celebration of the lives of their patients by
providing a quiet processional ceremony that
moves the deceased patient and their family
through a front door or a secondary door into
a garden space," Wright says. "The philosophy
here is that patients should leave the facility
with the same respect and dignity in which they
entered." Ultimately, this is a very sensitive decision made by individual facilities, and designers
can ease the process by providing end users
with a range of egress options.
For the staff
As much as hospice is all about patients and
their families, another core group that must be
considered is the staff that runs these facilities.
Providing care to the terminally ill is difficult,
and staff members will often develop personal
relationships with their patients and families. As
a result, Whitney says, they may endure quite
an emotional hit from the continued loss of their
charges. "Space to escape from the stress and
have a private conversation is critical to maintain
emotional equilibrium," she says.

JIM ROOF CREATIVE

Following trends in hospice
patient room design, Willson
Hospice's rooms feature doubleroom doors, a private patient
porch, residential-style bed,
overhead ceiling fan, a reading
light directly affixed to the
patient bed frame, and discreetly
disguised headwall outlets and
medical equipment connections.
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