RCH's Design - How It Came to Be
As you look at the new Rooks County Health Center one mile north of Plainville on Highway 183, you might wonder how this building design came to pass. Before the design was completed, the board of directors, administration and many staff members in a collaborative effort considered how the health center could continue to provide and improve their quality of care. The team considered the area in which we live to be one of our greatest assets and tied them into the design of the new hospital.
Both inside and out, you’ll see iconic materials found within the rural communities of Rooks County. The exterior color palette is also representative of the area. Red was chosen to represent barn buildings, lean-tos or other construction you might find on a farm. The green siding was used to represent the green fields and grass. The design uses material indigenous to this area of Kansas like galvanized metal, brick, concrete, steel and limestone. These things are frequently seen in farm settings all around Rooks County. The rationale behind the new hospital’s aesthetics was when someone uses this hospital there would be a sense of familiarity.
From the health care design component, the board and administration turned to the hospital’s department leaders and many staff members for guidance on what was best for the patients, their families and staff of RCH. As this team began re-imagining the historically basic hospital of the past and examined the good it had provided for over 50 years, they brought these ideas into a new building that brings in sunlight and nature, welcomes family and friends and puts patients in charge in as many ways possible.
“The emerging philosophy takes a new, scientific approach toward health care design. It utilizes data from hundreds of existing studies that meet the criteria of scientific investigation and common sense,” said Chuck Comeau, a member of RCH Board of Directors. Comeau noted one study as early as the 1980s found that giving patients a view of a beautiful Kansas wheat field or a sunset rather than a brick wall reduced their recovery time by 25 percent. Simply providing such a scene also is proven to reduce patient complaints for ailments such as nausea, thereby decreasing medication use.
Researchers from Texas A&M University and Georgia Tech University performed an analysis of hundreds of studies a few years ago for The Center for Health Design, a nonprofit organization based in Concord, Calif. The researchers found a direct link between hospital construction and patient outcome, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has helped fund some of the Center for Health Design’s efforts and supports the use of evidence-based design.
For example, patient falls declined 75 percent at an Indianapolis cardiac critical care unit after nursing stations were spread out and placed near patient rooms. And medical errors dropped by 30 percent on two units of a Detroit hospital that incorporated more space and noise reducing features for medication rooms.
The researchers suggested hospitals would see improvements for both patients and staff if they invested in such design features as single-patient rooms, sound-absorbing carpet and ceiling tiles, brighter lighting and better interior design. Evidence-based design, according to the center, is "used to create environments that are therapeutic, supportive of family involvement, efficient for staff performance and restorative for workers under stress”.
From the landscaping and oversized windows to the use of natural looking materials in colors depicting rural Kansas life, the hospital intends to give patients and their families the atmosphere of a healing and comfortable environment. At the new hospital, virtually all patient rooms and offices have windows, which also provide for a healing environment.
Positive distractions are built into the design of the new hospital in the form of photography of Kansas landscapes by local artist Lawrence Pfortmiller. Using local artisans takes a prominent role in the building's overall atmosphere. Michelle Garvert has also been commissioned to complete oil paintings of significant donors to the building project. Stan Deitrix is ready to hang the four stained glass windows he designed and built for the hospitals chapel. “There is a strong body of evidence demonstrating how art improves patient outcomes too,” states Bill Stahl, COO of RCH.
"Science moves so quickly and methods change so quickly, that we depend on the staff to tell us what they need," said Julie Price, CEO of RCH. “Before we designed the rooms, we sat on the bed. Before we put the nurses station close to the emergency room and the patient rooms, we talked to many of the nurses who work daily to provide top-notch care to our patients. Before we positioned the windows, we studied the position of the view and the moon and sun. The moment you walk in the doors of RCH, you’ll know we walked in our patients’ shoes and you’ll discover that everything about RCH was looked at from a unique perspective, yours. We could have built just another hospital. Instead, we built a connection to Rooks County and to tomorrow.”
Kathy Ramsay RN
Communications & Development Director