Healthcare
With a focus shifting to collaborative models and processes in academic health centers that accelerate discovery and improve treatments, healthcare facilities are moving toward settings that improve the transfer of knowledge to support patient outcomes.
Translational Health Sciences
Workplace, Facilities and Centers
Ambulatory Care
Acute Care
The Behavioral Health Care Continuum
Translational Health Sciences
Translation is the process of identifying a new approach
or therapy to improve a health need in patients or populations, developing and validating that approach, then taking it to application with patients and broader use.
Translation happens when connections are made. Space designed to attract people from their clinical and research workplaces fosters unplanned interaction leading to new partnerships and ideas.
The right connections
Opportunities for improved patient convenience, enhanced efficiency and expanded brand must be balanced with staffing, reimbursement and connections to research and education. The entire network should be designed to meet greater strategic goals as one entity connected to the community through access to care.
Ambulatory Care
College of
Nursing
As academic health centers increasingly move to higher acuity, facilities must be flexible and robust to facilitate care for increasingly complex and specialized patient cases while simultaneously supporting interdisciplinary teamwork, teaching and research.
Acute Care
Harvard University research has shown that proximity is important not only to the quantity of collaboration, but also to the quality of collaborations.
Proximity matters
Simply locating a lab next to a clinic doesn’t guarantee that researchers interact with clinicians. Innovation occurs through ideas transferred between groups, not through collaboration within a group.
Drive movement
How far people will go to access a destination? Clear sight lines to adjacent floors and strategically distributed destinations can create a vibrant — yet vertical — spine.
Vertical spine
Traditionally, the core network for translation is Healthcare + Research + Education. But, these aren’t the only critical connections. To complete a cycle, lots of other partnerships and groups can become part of the network.
Diverse networks
A balance between team and individual space provides people with time and space to think, but also places to explore ideas with people who have different points of view: that’s transfer of knowledge — how an idea becomes a real-life solution.
Transform workspace
Creating a strong horizontal link and strategically locating destination points — retail, dining, libraries, plazas — along this path of circulation promotes interaction and creates the trans-disciplinary base necessary for translation.
Horizontal integration
Vertical integration and visibility creates physical awareness. “Being on a different floor is like being in a different world.”
- Tom Allen, MIT
Vertical integration
Caregiver Zone
All inpatient rooms should be designed to accommodate separate and distinct zones for patients, families, caregivers and hygiene to improve the healthcare environment experience. Care extends outside the room also, via virtual connections with specialists, researchers, and family, as well as ambulation and peer support around the unit.
patient Zone
family Zone
hygiene Zone
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College of
Medicine
Academic
Center
Academic
Center
Children's
Hospital
VA
Hospital
Community
Hospital
Care for patients with behavioral health needs falls on a continuum, and often one patient interacts with the services and support at different points along that continuum. When planning new care models, facilities, campuses or networks, the entire continuum must be considered to prevent gaps. If gaps do exist, people in need of services will fall through those gaps, resulting in costly increased length of stay, overcrowded emergency departments, inadequate resources for care, and even increased interaction with law enforcement.
The Behavioral Health Care Continuum
Mental health is built in our communities. Healthy schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and families build a strong foundation for mental health reinforced by support services like family counseling, shelters, and sobering centers. Though community support can occur naturally, sometimes it must be designed through city and community master planning, with an emphasis on equal access and equity.
Home and Community
Sobering Centers
OP Clinics, PHP
Outpatient BH
Crisis Stabilization Unit
Urgent Care/ED
ED
Acute, Forensic
Inpatient
Residential Treatment,
Transitional Living
Long-term care
Home and Community
Outpatient BH
Urgent Care/ED
ED
Inpatient
Long-term care
8 Big Ideas That Drive Translational Design
Regional
Hospital
Cancer
Center
Specialty
Institute
Schools of
Allied Health
Medical
Center
College of
Nursing
College of
Medicine
Regional
Hospital
Outpatient mental health care can be a one-time occurrence or a life-long routine. Regardless of the situation, outpatient spaces need to account for the sensitive nature of information that is shared during group and private therapy sessions. Outpatient care, while traditionally provided indoors in designated spaces, is starting to shift to alternative sites such as outdoor gardens, walking paths and virtual care.
Crisis stabilization units, also called crisis centers or psychiatric urgent care centers, are a key component to the continuum of care, providing therapeutic and empathetic mental health care in a setting that is appropriate for individuals struggling with mental illness. Stabilization units relieve pressure on emergency departments and reduce inpatient admissions.
Crisis stabilization units, also called crisis centers or psychiatric urgent care centers, are a key component to the continuum of care, providing therapeutic and empathetic mental health care in a setting that is appropriate for individuals struggling with mental illness. Stabilization units relieve pressure on emergency departments and reduce inpatient admissions.
Inpatient units can accommodate patients with a wide range of needs. Inpatient behavioral health spaces must be designed with patient dignity in mind, reinforce daily routine, and provide patients with autonomy. Safety features, such as ligature resistant accessories and fixtures and unobstructed sight lines for staff should be implemented in a way that creates a normalized environment.
For longer lengths of stay, residential treatments centers offer continuous care in a safe, structured environment that reinforces daily routine. This is accomplished by designing a journey for the residents as they progress throughout the day or by creating a “main street” concept, including shops, libraries, post offices, and other main street amenities, and — for youth facilities — educational spaces.
Hover to reveal zones
The Behavioral Health Care Continuum
Acute Care
Ambulatory
Translational Health Sciences
With a focus shifting to collaborative models and processes in Academic Health Centers that accelerate discovery and improve treatments, healthcare facilities are moving toward settings that improve the transfer of knowledge to support patient outcomes.
Integrated Centers
Workplace, Facilities and Centers
Traditional Approach
Strategic Partnerships: Increased Focus on Population Health
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Education and Academics
Research
Healthcare
Integrated Centers
Workplace, Facilities, and Centers
Current State and Future State
Integrated Living Master Plans
Reshaping the Campus
Smart Start
Integrated Living Master Planning
Infrastructure and Energy
Economics, Real Estate, Phasing
Sustainability and Resiliency
Precincts and Development Zones
Community Development
Education and Workplace
AHC Database
Research Strategy Analytics
Health Strategy and Analytics
Strategy and Analytics
Education and Academics
Research
Healthcare
Integrated Centers
Workplace, Facilities, and Centers
Infrastructure and Energy
Economics, Real Estate, Phasing
Reshaping the Campus
Smart Start
Integrated Living Master Planning
Current State and Future State
Integrated Living Master Plans
Sustainability and Resiliency
Precincts and Development Zones
Community Development
Education and Workplace
AHC Database
Research Strategy and Analytics
Health Strategy and Analytics
Strategy and Analytics
Get in touch