Healthcare Design - December 2020 - 32

REVIEW
BREAKOUT SESSION

STRENGTHENING THE CASE FOR
RESILIENT DESIGN
I T ' S I M P E R AT I V E that healthcare designers
ensure the built environment supports and enables healthcare workers and the community
they serve as much as possible during a wide
range of potential shocks and stressors. " Hospitals by their nature have to be resilient. They
serve the most vulnerable during times of need
and must remain operational, " said Joss Hurford, building performance consultant at AffiliJoss Hurford
ated Engineers, during the session " The Many
Roads to Resilient Design " at HCD Virtual.
Hurford was joined by Julie Frazier, director
of healthcare planning and associate principal
at Perkins&Will; Megan Recher, regenerative
design specialist and associate at ArchNexus;
and Willa Kuh, director of planning at Affiliated Engineers. During the session, Kuh noted
that while the design and healthcare comJulie Frazier
munities are keenly aware of the need for facilities to operate with little or no interruption
when a disaster-scale event occurs, the design
community wrestles with several unknowns,
including how much a facility design should
exceed code to prepare for increasing climate
stresses and more impactful and more frequent climate shocks.
For example, climate change and aging infraWilla Kuh
structure have accelerated the rate at which disaster-scale events are occurring. " This means
that when disasters do strike, there's a greater
risk of catastrophic failure at a time when utilities are needed the most, " Hurford said. Additionally, codes and standards are generally reactive and are not enough to deliver a resilient
facility, he said. " You must look to the future and
not the past to get ahead of the next big event. "
Megan Recher
One tool to help guide project teams is RELi, a
resilience consensus standard developed in collaboration with stakeholders across the industry, including Perkins&Will and nonprofit Institute
for Market Transformation to Sustainability. " RELi is a comprehensive
action item list that provides a holistic framework to create strategies for
a project and a metric to measure it's success by, " Frazier said. During the
presentation, Hurford introduced a proprietary tool developed by Affiliated Engineers, a large database of ways in which a building can be impacted
and fail during a hazard. " It maps the risk posed to critical function, such
as emergency surgery, through the program and building services that
support them, " Hurford said. " Design teams can then better understand
the threat environment, quantify risk holistically, and better understand
where and how to focus their efforts. " -TW

DECEMBER 2020

BREAKOUT SESSION

3 CHANGES TO WATCH IN
HEALTHCARE DESIGN
REPRESENTATIVES FROM three healthcare organizations shared their experiences in 2020 and some
of the design lessons they've learned during the
HCD Virtual session " Titanic Healthcare Shifts That
Will Show Up in Tomorrow's Healthcare Facilities, "
presented by the Association of Medical Facility
Professionals. Jon Buggy, healthcare and life sciences
principal at RSP Architects, moderated the discussion
with Jonathan Cogswell, assistant vice president, facilities services and engineering at Northwell Health;
Victoria Navarro, regional director of planning,
design, and construction at Advocate Aurora Health;
and Kerrie Bartel-Christensen, vice president of real
estate strategy and operations at Providence Health.
Here are three takeaways:
1. Long-term changes to facility design.
Cogswell said he expects the pandemic will " fundamentally change healthcare. " For example, services
like telehealth have been pushed to the forefront.
Furthermore, he noted the importance of adding
more mechanical systems and re-evaluating the size
of private patient rooms to better accommodate two beds in
the event of another surge.
2. Addressing gaps in
care. The pandemic has also
highlighted the need to address
social inequities and disparities
in access to medical services.
Navarro said healthcare orgaKerrie Bartel-Christensen
nizations should be considering how they can impact issues
such as safe housing, transportation, and access to food.
3. Importance of resiliency. This year also saw
its share of natural disasters,
reinforcing the importance of
resilient design. Bartel-ChrisVictoria Navarro
tensen said one of Providence
Health's hospitals had to
adjust its ventilation system as
wildfires impacted air quality
across the region. " Our planet
and healthcare are interconnected, " she said.-AD

Jonathan Cogswell

http://www.HCDvirtual.com

Healthcare Design - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Healthcare Design - December 2020