St. Joseph Architect Impressive

06/14/2009

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As an architect who has dedicated his career to the planning and design of hospitals, clinics and health care facilities, I have planned and designed hospitals and hospital campuses of varying sizes from Los Angeles to Baraboo to Boston. They involved a variety of complexities and integration with care level, teaching and research.

Often, people falsely believe that only hospitals in large metropolitan areas can provide the highest quality of care with the latest technology and the top physicians. I recently had the pleasure of touring St. Joseph’s Hospital as part of national healthcare design colloquium hosted by Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin.

I was impressed to find the level of care and attention to the patient that was provided, evidenced in my review of the hospital as an advanced care facility that is positioned to provide quality care over the next generation. In my experience, St. Joseph’s Hospital, which opened in 2005, has uniquely merged high touch and high tech in its facility to benefit the community it serves.

In 2003, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released “Patient Safety: Achieving a New Standard for Care.” The influence of the report and its recommendations are evidenced in the current design of St. Joseph’s Hospital, making the new facility one of the safest hospitals in the country.
For instance, the Emergency Department is located adjacent to the Intensive Care Unit. This contiguity is pivotal to provide quick action in times of crisis. Nurse stations positioned at every patient room provide reassurance of quality care and quick response to the patient by the nurse and other caregivers. The attention paid to family and visitors and their needs during the time their loved ones are at St Joseph’s makes this hospital an asset to the community and a model for others to emulate.

Understanding St. Joseph’s vision to better serve the West Bend community, the current campus provides flexibility, state of the art technology, and comforts that respond to the needs of patients, physicians and caregivers. These features and qualities are essential to meeting today’s healthcare needs and those of the next generation.

Features of the hospital, such as its layout, its incorporation of the newest technology, and its focus on patient safety and comfort create a contemporary facility that attracts and retains the best healthcare professionals in the region. Access to the high level of expertise of these professionals, a floor plan which includes all-private patient rooms, access to daylight and views of the beautiful campus, and the comfort and amenities the facility offers, are important factors to those who choose to use and work at the hospital.

St. Joseph’s Hospital offers a level of care not typically found at a facility of its size and offers a level of personal treatment found only at places that put the patient first. As an architect and planner with over 25 years of experience in designing hospitals, I believe the current St Joseph’s Hospital is a truly remarkable facility that carries on the community tradition of providing the highest quality care in a friendly, patient- first atmosphere. That is what is expected, and delivered, at St Joseph’s Hospital, a hospital your community can be very proud to call its own.

(Jim Mladucky, AIA, is the director of Healthcare – Midwest for the healthcare planning and design practice for OWP/P, a 300-person architectural, engineering and consulting practice based in Chicago that specializes in the design and planning of hospitals throughout the country.)