Healthcare Design - May 2016 - 48

Q+A with Sharon Woodworth
Healthcare practice leader, Perkins+Will
San Francisco

How has the conversation on wellness and sustainable
healthcare design changed in the last five years?
I don't think that sustainability is segueing to wellness, but we are seeing
a great deal more interest in wellness. One of the reasons is the economic pressure on our clients to keep
not only their patients but their staff healthy and to conserve resources both in terms of the caregiver
and the care receiver. Wellness is also a topic we're seeing throughout society. Our culture, especially in
the U.S., is indoors more, sitting at computers, and as a result we're seeing a rise in childhood obesity,
diabetes, and asthma. So there's a social pressure to look at wellness.

MEASURING UP

How can sustainable design help create healthier healthcare environments?

built environment? HDR is giving it a

There are some basics, such as noise and light, that have always been of concern to patients, physicians,
and nurses. When we talk about light, we often refer to it from a sustainability standpoint as "natural
light" and "access to natural light," and we try and set metrics to achieve a percentage of natural light
throughout the square footage.
But from a wellness endpoint, it's the artificial lighting that we're specifying that should be more
sensitive and more tuned in to the circadian rhythm of our bodies. We've known about this since the
1970s, but now there are finally photobiologists who are encouraging healthcare architects to specify light
bulbs that go from very cool blues in the morning to much warmer reds in the evening. We're even at a
point where we can specify the nanometers, or wavelengths, of those bulbs. But I have only one client that
has actually built a facility with that kind of lighting, and we need to do more of that.

shot, with a wellness dashboard tool it

Beyond access to daylighting, what are some wellness elements healthcare projects
should consider?
I'd like to see more clients think beyond their building and parking lots to create healthcare districts. Some
cities are encouraging them by giving a healthcare entity some financial incentive to do things on their
campus, like bike paths, safe pedestrian zones, or circulation routes that allow people to walk from one point
to another. It benefits healthcare organizations in many ways by attracting consumers that they normally
wouldn't have in their catchment area and sending the message of health and activity to the community.

Ever wish there was a way to measure
the results of wellness initiatives in the

conceived last summer as a companywide initiative and began developing in
January. The inspiration was the growing
number of client requests for biophilic
design and other wellness strategies
to be integrated into projects-as well
as questions that followed, such as
what data was available to capture
effectiveness or how to measure cost
against benefit.
So the firm set out to create a
technology that will produce hard
metrics for design teams to present to
clients to answer some of those questions
in early design phases and for healthcare
organizations to continue to use after

How can guidelines and codes be developed or updated to focus on wellness and not
just the medical or safety aspects of the built environment?

building occupancy.

We're reliant on codes, but they don't get into improving outcomes. For example, the code shouldn't be how
big the window is to bring in natural light but how much daylighting comes in. We also have to find a way to
balance the safety aspect from fire and exit codes with active building elements, such as open stairs in hightraffic areas. These don't just focus on the healthy body but also the healthy mind, because they're one of the
best places for people in other disciplines to meet one another. The other aspect to that is we have to include
destinations in the codes. It's one thing to put an open stair right at the front door, but to encourage people to
use it you need to create destinations along the way, such as places to stop or sit, or spaces that engage the
senses. People can be attracted away from an elevator if they smell coffee or hear music floating from above.

the tool will first focus on the connection

Where would you like to see the wellness conversation go next in healthcare design?
I think atriums can do so much for a space, and I don't mean a soaring one like in a Guggenheim
museum, but your average three-story atrium. These spaces allow for inspiration and gathering and help
significantly with wayfinding, and I'd love to see financial incentives to allow our buildings to have them.
Right now, clients don't view them as cost-effective because they're unrentable or unusable space that
has to be air conditioned. In healthcare architecture, we've lost that place where people can go and hear
music some days, take a yoga class, or sit around and have coffee.

With a release expected in October,
between light and wellness, with light
identified as the most prolific category
to affect the productivity and well-being
of employees and patients/visitors. The
dashboard will essentially work like a
personal health tracking device (think
Fitbit) that's user-friendly and captures
trends in a way that connects the dots
between strategies in place and their
effect on building systems and cost.
The firm says this will be followed in
future phases by metrics for air, nature,
acoustics, choice, water, mind, materials,
fitness, and nourishment. HCD

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Healthcare Design - May 2016

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