LITTLE FALLS, N.Y. — Little Falls Hospital in Herkimer County, N.Y., anticipates the groundbreaking on a new primary care clinic this spring, according to the President of Little Falls Hospital, Michael Ogden.

The clinic will replace the existing facility as the current plans call for a one-story, medical office building that can accommodate four practitioners.

The new space will provide eight exams rooms, offices and a laboratory, and “many other related ancillary spaces.”

Moreover, the design includes a 2,000-square-foot addition for the purpose of hosting space for community health and wellness-related activities.  

After purchasing 1.28 acres from the Dolgeville Central School last fall, the hospital initiated design work for the new primary care center, working with architects and engineers uniquely qualified and skilled in health care design and construction.

The new 5,000-square-foot facility will cost approximately $3 million and will be supported by grants, foundations, and donations from the greater Dolgeville community.

According to Little Falls Hospital, this space will be used for health and wellness education, lifestyle related classes and to support other community-based organizations whose goals are to address social determinants of health.

Presently, the hospital is in the midst of developing a certificate of need (CON) application to be submitted and approved by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) before construction may begin.

The project is slated for completion six months following the groundbreaking, and the opening of the center is anticipated later this year, following NYSDOH approval.

The clinic aims to provide convenient access to the much-need primary care services for the Dolgeville community, as the school the new clinic will stand upon, serves as a hub for the area.

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OLATHE, Kan. – Olathe Health Physicians Inc. officially opened its doors to the Olathe Hedge Lane Clinic with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in October 2017. The event marked the opening of the the $2.2. million, 9,400-square-foot multipurpose facility, which provides primary care, radiology, X-rays and lab services.

The design-build project partnered lead architect Hoefer Wysocki Architecture of Leawood, Kan., and general contractor Meyers Brothers Building Co. of Kansas City, Mo., together to create a new, reusable prototype of a single-story, outpatient medical office building. The layout was created in pods that can be easily replicated to allow the clinic to expand if needed, and delivers next-generation access to healthcare in the community.

“Unlike traditional urgent care facilities, the Hedge Lane Clinic has radiology, X-ray and lab capabilities with primary care and family medicine physicians and nurses to provide diagnostic and treatment services,” said Hoefer Wysocki Principal-in-Charge Jim Sterman, AIA, NCARB, in a statement. “The goal was to create an iconic, one-stop facility that would efficiently meet healthcare needs of the surrounding community. Olathe residents can now schedule regular checkups, blood work, X-rays and more, all in one location while avoiding time-consuming trips to a hospital.”

Sterman explained how Hoefer Wysocki worked with Olathe Health to explore different ways to incorporate their visual brand identity into the interior and exterior space.

On the exterior, a lighted band of color marks the main entrance, resulting in a signature beacon that is easily recognized from a greater distance than traditional signage could achieve. The goal was to deliver the same visual impact to the clinic’s interior, and the design team took a holistic approach to this through color. The same blues and greens highlight every room of the clinic. It’s seen in the carpet behind the reception desk and in the provider spaces. The same color palette accents walls throughout the clinic, and the reception area has the Olathe Medical symbol on their reception glass. The interior design team assisted the owner in selecting furnishings that compliment the new brand in terms of shape, style and color.

With the many challenges that come along with healthcare projects of this magnitude, the biggest challenge for this project was designing for technology and delivery methods that don’t yet exist. In order for future expansions to be executed without interruption to clinical operations, the project required thoughtful space planning and design, with flexibility and adaptability first and foremost.

The patient rooms were strategically placed between the reception area and healthcare team offices to create an efficient system. This design was created to minimize medical personnel and patient walking distances. “Efficiency and replication were the best practices used in this design process,” said Sterman. “The efficiency in layout in the exam section of the facility decreases the time the patient is back being seen.”

With this design, the modular, smaller-scale clinic ultimately humanizes healthcare. The clinic offers easy access to healthcare at a scale that is more approachable and less intimidating than a hospital campus, with more diagnostic and treatment capabilities than a traditional doctor’s office. Families can now attend to multiple medical needs in a single location that’s close to home.

Hedge Lane Clinic Focuses on Efficiency

From an operational perspective, the clinic design focuses on efficiency — reducing nursing staff’s footsteps and allowing more time for patient care. Secondly, the zoning of the clinic modules prevents the mixing of patients and the medical team work centers. This separation improves intuitive wayfinding for patients and visitors as well as optimizes the efficiencies of the medical team by reducing distractions of having patients mix in the nurse charting area.

Not only will the Hedge Lane clinic help provide effective and timely patient care, but it has already provided a connection to the community. Sterman explained that before they completed construction, patients were already booking appointments. The Olathe Clinic was completed in time for flu shot season and the community flocked to the site once it opened. “It’s so rewarding to actually see that our work is positively impacting a community. High design is very important to our firm but it’s the end user’s experience that matters most,” said Sterman.

What was pioneering in this project was not technology, but the building type itself. Olathe Health works to stay on the edge of the continually changing healthcare market. With patients now as consumers, Olathe Health wanted to transform its healthcare delivery capabilities to better meet the needs of the community.

“This project has accomplished just that,” concluded Sterman.

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LEBANON, N.H. — Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital and E4H Environments for Health Architecture of Burlington, Vt., celebrated the opening of the new Alice Peck Day (APD) Memorial Hospital Multi-Specialty Clinic in November 2017. The construction of the 44,000-square-foot facility began in 2014, running a budget of approximately $11 million with the clinic functioning as a multi-specialty operation, providing myriad services all under one roof.

The services of this new multi-specialty clinic include primary and family care, pediatrics, women’s care, diagnostic imaging, phlebotomy, orthopedics, general surgery, and physical and occupational therapy.

One of the key goals of this design is to allow patients, who are often coming from long distances, to complete multiple appointments in one visit, creating a time-efficient service for all patients. For example, a family could schedule annual physicals for both parents and children as well as a physical therapy session for a family member recovering from shoulder or knee surgery. They could also have follow-up imaging or blood work done for a family member who recently had a procedure.

E4H Partner Jennifer Arbuckle, explained that the most important feature of this facility is the organizing principle of convenience, bringing with it a broad range of outpatient services into one building, for the benefit of both patients and healthcare providers.

“This design also makes it much easier for physicians and nurses from different health specialties to consult and collaborate with each other. They’re across or down the hall from each other, not in separate buildings,” Arbuckle said.

The completion of this facility highlights the layout of the exam rooms and the design of the waiting rooms. The layout of the exam rooms are standardized, modular and adaptable so that any exam room can be used over the course of a day by a primary-care doctor, pediatrician, gynecologist, orthopedist, general surgeon or other type of specialist or therapist. Arbuckle explained that this will increase the utilization rate of exam rooms, with positive financial benefits. The waiting rooms, check-in and checkout areas, as well as corridors, have all been situated to maximize the integration of daylight into the interior of the facility, with the hopes of creating a warm and welcoming environment for its patients.

E4H implemented specific design practices to bolster the focus of the facility on patient care and improve the overall delivery of services.

“E4H’s vision is always about creating flexible environments for health that enhance the well-being of patients and families — what we call ‘smart facility design.’ Working with Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital was a wonderful opportunity to bring this vision to life in the context of bringing a broad set of outpatient services into one New Hampshire location to maximize patient convenience and collaboration among healthcare providers,” said Arbuckle.

When asked about suggestions E4H may have for designing facilities such as these, Arbuckle explained the importance of best facilitating the convenience and collaboration for both patients and clinical staff.

“Translating this principle into design requires thoughtfully bringing together comprehensive, multidisciplinary user groups to develop and come to consensus on facility design plans — particularly flexible, modular design that can accommodate the full range of outpatient services provided in the multi-specialty clinic,” said Arbuckle. “As you can imagine, this requires lots of discussion and many rounds of refining and perfecting designs. Thankfully, we had very strong administrative leadership on the owner’s side that kept these conversations on track, always moving forward, and led to a facility design we believe everyone at APD — and most importantly, all their patients — will greatly appreciate for the convenience it provides and the collaboration in excellent healthcare delivery it promotes.”

The two-story clinic is fully operational and open to patients, centrally located on the Lebanon campus of Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital.

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