Healthcare Design - August 2017 - 71

Sculptural headwall with integrated
technology Yazdani was a relative newcomer to the healthcare design sector,

with UCSD Health Jacobs Medical Center his first standalone hospital project. Bringing a history of commercial, education, and residential design to the table, he saw an
opportunity to strike a better balancein how patient rooms are approached: "Can we
create a comfortable, symbiotic relationship between the utilitarian and the quality of
the space?" The answer was a sculptural form that seamlessly integrates gas, lighting,
electrical outlets, a patient lift, etc., using a high-design aesthetic. "It's the idea of designing the headwall as if it's a piece of furniture in your living room or a hotel room and
collecting all the clinical and technology pieces into that piece of furniture," he says.
The unit includes pieces and panels that are adjustable and removable,
answering a desire by the client that the hospital not only be beautiful and state
of the art but flexible enough to accommodate future needs, says Randy Leopold,
senior director of healthcare architecture at UCSD. "Technology is the one place
where you need the most flexibility, because in some sense they were designing
in 2007, 2008, 2009 for technology that didn't even exist. The headwall is a
microcosm of that," he says.
To determine the correct headwall solution, the team went through several design
iterations, building mocks-ups and inviting users to comment and critique the
design. The final design is scalable, too, allowing it to be used in various-sized patient
rooms.

Leopold says the hospital wasn't so prescriptive in demanding
details like stunning ocean views and elevated gardens, which
were ultimately delivered. But that doesn't mean they weren't
encouraged. "There's always an expectation here of digging into
those kinds of subtle
things," he says. And the
location itself begged
for those solutions with
panoramic views to La Jolla,
nearby canyons, and the
Pacific Ocean beyond.
The team created more
than 60 design concepts
through computer
modeling to create a
building form that best
took advantage of those
views and best controlled
the light. "We studied [the
building form] endlessly,
mocked it up, and looked at
how much light it allowed,
how much heat gain and
glare it blocked, and to maximize views to enhance the patient
experience," Yazdani says.
Where needed, fritting was placed on windows to control heat
gain and glare, while in the patient rooms, full-height windows
were delivered. Additionally, there are several gardens and
courtyards, some dedicated specifically to public, patient, or staff
use only.

Access to gardens and natural light

Operational efficiency

To answer an ownership goal for operational
efficiency, the design team used client engagement
and visioning sessions as a starting point to determine
the design that would ultimately deliver on that
request, says Carlos Amato, healthcare principal
at CannonDesign (Los Angeles). These sessions
included 513 meetings with 65 user groups (including
clinicians, staff, patients, and family members) across
80 departments and with 150 design consultants.
Additionally, managing operational flow began in the
programming/schematic phase and continued into
design/development, with process mapping then
employed to understand the current state to achieve
an improved future state-and even improve upon
design plans. "One example is a dedicated intake
suite, which was planned as part of the original design.
Using process mapping and other simulation testing,
our team was able to eliminate the need for the intake
suite in the final design by demonstrating
to the client that technology could
be used to provide the same level
of operational efficiency without
using the amount of space typically
required," Amato says.
Additionally, to better understand
the experiences and processes of clinical
care teams, the designers traveled to
Cleveland Clinic with UCSD Health's
neurosurgery team, together
spending hours observing
surgeries. "Then a mock-up site
was created to further develop and
experiment with the surgical space
and processes, allowing medical user
groups to 'play' with the different configurations and
test the model space," he says-the results of which
were refined over the course of 1.5 years before
arriving at final design.
For more on the UCSD Health Jacobs Medical
Center, see page 83. 
Jennifer Kovacs Silvis is editor-in-chief of Healthcare
Design. She can be reached at J E N N I F E R . S I L V I S @
EMERALDEXPO.COM.

AUGUST 2017

Healthcare Design - August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Design - August 2017