By providing supervised management-level experience and training, Jackson was able to support the growth of local small businesses and positively impact the careers of team members assigned to Jackson projects. Serving as Jackson’s program management consultant on the US$1.8 billion Miracle-Building Bond Program, ArchTam and subconsultant partner firm Creativision MEDIA, Inc. worked alongside Jackson executive leadership staff to help develop and administer their mentor-protégé development program.

Created in 2015 at the start of the Miracle-Building Bond Program, the mentor-protégé program was the first of its kind in that there were no previous large healthcare capital improvement initiatives with a formal mentor-protégé program. The program’s goal was to stimulate growth for the small firms by providing them with the skills to effectively take on healthcare construction projects, ultimately creating a positive long-term ripple effect throughout the Miami-Dade community and beyond.

Perfect pairs

Seven protégé firms participated in the mentor-protégé program, all of which were minority-owned, women-owned or minority women-owned. The program paired large construction management at-risk firms with these local small businesses. ArchTam and Charesse Chester of Creativision MEDIA helped Jackson execute the curriculum development and learning process, which included establishing expectations for participants. Each of the protégé participants were required to demonstrate their knowledge in 28 categories encompassed within three primary learning concepts:

1) pre-construction phase healthcare construction industry planning;

2) construction phase healthcare construction including management and delivery functions performed on capital development projects;

3) related business processes and protocols.

Based on the leadership team’s experience with oversight of the mentor-protégé program, the most important characteristic in a successful mentor for a program like this is that they have the heart and mind of a teacher and are committed to their role as a trusted guide throughout the process. In addition, they must be dedicated to establishing a solid relationship with their protégé. In turn, protégés must demonstrate a willingness to learn.

To ensure protégé firms were achieving learning milestones, they were asked to grade themselves throughout the program to communicate what and how effectively they were learning. This gave their mentors and the leadership team an idea of where learning deficiencies existed, and how to bridge those learning gaps.

Positive community impacts

The Jackson Health System’s mentor-protégé program represented a unique opportunity to stimulate significant growth in local SBE-C firms, in turn creating a positive impact in the Miami-Dade County community. Out of an average of about 750 certified SBE-C firms in Miami-Dade County in recent years, typically two per year graduate out of that certification. However, two of the seven protégé firms in this mentor-protégé program achieved such growth by the completion of the Miracle-Building Bond Program, which directly speaks to the mentor-protégé program’s effectiveness and lasting impact on the community.

Protégé firms that successfully completed the program have subsequently teamed with mentor firms to win additional work outside of the Bond Program, or even on their own as prime contractors. This is not only a win for the protégé firms, but also for the mentor firms — they now have a larger pool of local businesses they can partner with in seeking future work. Jackson Health greatly benefitted as well, since the pool of skilled healthcare construction contractors in South Florida increased, creating an increased workforce supply chain for projects that occurred during the Bond Program, and other future Jackson Health System projects.

There were individual victories as well — one protégé employee was gradually assigned more responsibilities throughout their company’s involvement in the Bond Program, and he was ultimately promoted to assistant superintendent.

The Jackson Health System/ArchTam partnership to deliver the Miracle-Building Bond Program — and create the successful mentor-protégé program — fulfilled ArchTam’s and our client’s goals of creating meaningful and long-lasting positive impacts in the communities we serve, while also supporting opportunities for SBEs to grow.

The post A case study in strengthening supplier diversity through a successful mentor-protégé program appeared first on Blog.

Daniel DiMarco, associate principal, B+P, is a leader in the higher education and healthcare market sectors and is based in ArchTam’s Roanoke office in Virginia. He has more than 25 years of comprehensive design experience for leading higher education and healthcare facilities, including public, private and government clients. Projects also include higher education spaces related to translational medical research and schools of medicine.

Design inspiration

I chose the design profession because it offered the opportunity to use a variety of interests I have had from my earliest years to engage the world in a meaningful way. This includes creativity, math, science and history combined to find solutions to today’s challenges.

Passion for places of learning

Having spent many years in higher education spaces as a student between my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I have a deep appreciation for places of learning. Higher education spaces are evolving with approaches toward pedagogy being challenged by economic and technological pressures. As a designer, I have the ability to work with our clients to perceive solutions that fit their current needs as well as provide them with degrees of flexibility in design that will adapt to tomorrow’s approach toward learning.

Most rewarding project

While working at ArchTam here in Roanoke, Virginia, I have been fortunate to be the lead architect on the Riverside Center, now referred to as the Virginia Tech Carilion Health Sciences and Technology Campus (Campus and Facilities | Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC | Virginia Tech). ArchTam had just completed the master plan for this campus when I first joined in 2004. I was able to work with the client on developing the design for a 100,000-square-foot medical office building that also includes a range of higher education and research spaces, a 220,000-square-foot outpatient medical facility that is part of the emerging academic medical center and includes resident space and conference areas, the new 154,000-square-foot Virginia Tech Carilion (VTC) School of Medicine and Research Institute, a four-year medical school, and recently, the new VTC Fralin Biomedical Research Institute that includes higher education spaces, research areas and clinical services related to veterinary care and translational medical research.

This new campus has become an academic medical center and a nucleus of transformation. It started out as a brownfield site and became a robust center of higher education, translational medical research and clinical care. This campus is a regional hub for care and is becoming noticed on a global scale for the discoveries that are being accomplished in buildings we designed.

Positive impact of design

Design has the power to improve people’s lives in a variety of ways which, in turn, have positive effects on the environment. In higher education settings, the students can grow and mature in ways that not only affect their own lives, but have ripple effects on others through positive interaction and engagement.

A quote from Winston Churchill in 1943 — “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us” — not only relates to our process in the design of buildings, but how the actual built form has transformation effects on those that inhabit the spaces that are part of the project. This quote has resonated with me throughout my career.

The post People Spotlight: Meet Daniel DiMarco appeared first on Blog.

ArchTam’s partnership with Enviah, a Grand Rapids-based, woman-owned business, has been fostered through a deep rooted and keen understanding of operational system performance models and the complex systems and structures required for this type of project.

Using their evidence led three-dimensional process – Discover, Design and Do – Enviah collaborated with HFMH in the pre-planning stage. The approach was centered around a thorough investigation and understanding of the Henry Ford Macomb Hospital’s existing operational model and how the new building could transform their operations to achieve optimal outcomes. Results were quantified through system measures of efficiencies, including optimal staff productivity as they care for patients, staff engagement and workplace pride, and increased patient satisfaction through a defined experience of care.

“Enviah’s operational focus mirrors our thinking that great healthcare design should be aligned to simplify and organize business operations and then tailored to improve the practitioner and patient experience. It is an absolute honor working with Dr. MacAllister and her teams to help solve our clients’ complex problems and deliver projects that will serve local communities for years to come.” – G. Jerry Attia, ArchTam Michigan’s Vice President and Managing Principal

ArchTam quickly moved forward with incorporating the operational model into a patient floor plan. Our planning and design architects embraced the operational mapping as a strategy for designing a cost-effective, positive care experience, and space that delivered quality, safety and inspiration for staff and patients alike. As our work on the project progressed, Enviah’s proprietary Syntax Mapping System validated that the planning resulted in lower numbers of steps for caregivers, increased visibility on the patients and more intuitive wayfinding for visitors.

A paper doll session at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital

We were pleased to learn that HFMH leadership found that Enviah’s future-focused thinking and research has led to improvements in their approach to the delivery of services and operations.

“ArchTam’s team approaches design from the core of the business operation and cares deeply about the significant investment the client makes when creating new spaces for their businesses. By combining ArchTam’s healthcare design expertise with our operational model and tactical applications and design solutions, our approach not only fully conceives how the building will operate in the future, but also incorporates a real sense of place that complements the local community culture.” – Lorissa MacAllister, PhD, AIA, Enviah’s Founder and President

Soon after completing the pre-planning phase on the HFMH project, and due to the unprecedented challenges healthcare systems faced in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Enviah and ArchTam teamed up once more to collaborate on an alternate care facility in Memphis, Tenn.’s former Commercial Appeal building.

The established rapport and technical expertise of the team allowed us to jumpstart our response to the planned 28-day designbuild of a 403-bed COVID-19 response facility in support of a FEMA mission. Enviah created a process map that responded to the staff and patient care workflow and ArchTam married the process map with the initial design plans. Equipped with process mapping and plans, our team collaborated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and various Tennessee medical professionals for the project.

Our teamed efforts have been most impactful to the communities served, both in Michigan and Memphis. ArchTam and Enviah understand the importance of our contributions to population health through the built environment. When we work together to address the operational and business needs of our clients and then deliver a project that supports and enhances the care of people in the community, our success is measured in contributing to improved healthcare outcomes.

The post Future-Focused, Collaborative Design for Healthcare Facilities appeared first on Blog.

By reimagining next-generation learning environments — including team-based instruction and simulation, and student collaboration space — we’re providing students with innovative learning opportunities to support interdisciplinary healthcare teams.

Trends driving learning environments in health science

While embracing the latest in medical education technology, students want to use cutting-edge virtual anatomy systems, but are also eager for more classic, hands-on learning opportunities with cadavers. When aiming to provide students with the best medical education, schools will focus on providing students with multiple learning modalities.

A good example of this is the integration of a virtual anatomy curriculum, coupled with hands-on anatomy/dissection experiences. Both experiences help build an integrated understanding of how to work with digital and physical models.

Another significant shift in health science education is in the medical library. The medical library of yesterday, with extensive stacks of books and reference material, is obsolete. We’re now seeing more universities replacing these resources with informal study, team and collaboration spaces, coupled with information resource advisors to assist with student research.

Medical simulation is a key aspect of health science education and one of the key aspects of interprofessional education. At Lakeland Community College, Ohio, we’re using state-of-the-art technology to simulate clinical environments. Based on the model of a functioning hospital — from corridors to exam rooms — we’ve designed the space to mimic real-life hospital spaces.

Everyone learns differently, so we focus on providing students with access to a variety of learning spaces, ranging from individual study space, problem-based learning rooms, active learning areas and lecture halls. Tying all of these spaces together and encouraging students to collaborate and work together enables them to have a team-based approach, which is vital in today’s healthcare profession.

At the Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute, Virginia, we’ve designed a team-based, patient-centered learning environment. This design allows students to teach each other within a Patient Centered Learning (PCL) model, supporting collaboration and interaction, which are key components to success in medical school.

In addition to providing varying types of learning spaces for health science students, providing sophisticated research environments can inspire students to enter the world of biomedical research opportunities. Coupling academic space with research space provides students with the opportunity to engage in research exploration, exploring future career pathways. Having research space right next door encourages students to be curious and inquire about the different types of research opportunities that they may choose to explore.

The ArchTam Approach

ArchTam is a multidisciplinary design practice that integrates all aspects of planning and design, for the built environment. Our integrated team approach brings an elevated and more complete perspective to the clients we work with. We ensure that our cross-disciplinary approach to solving problems, is a key aspect to the buildings and places that we design. Fostering team-based learning, in all types of spaces, including campus quads, landscape gardens, dormitories, student unions, sports facilities, performing arts complexes, and academic and research facilities. We understand how teams work and how to leverage communication and collaboration across multiple skill sets. This core understanding of how we work supports our clients’ goals to create spaces where teams can excel. Our iterative and collaborative design practice helps institutions create human-centered buildings and places that help foster innovation for the next generation, and generations to come.

The post Reimagining next generation learning environments in health science appeared first on Blog.

It was with William Lidwell’s mantra in mind that I came to the recent Enabled by Design-athon, a first for Australia thanks to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance who brought the event to Sydney following Design-athon events in London and Washington DC.

Bringing together a mix of people from design and engineering with those from the healthcare, social care and disability sectors, 120 of us gathered at University of Technology in Sydney over two days to design and make products and services for and with people living with disabilities – all in the name of universal design. While my team’s prototype did not take out the coveted first place, the event proved the potential that healthcare and design have when paired together, teaching what we – from both of those sides – can learn from one another.

Learning from designers

From the event’s launch by Joanne Jakovich (SOUP Labs) until the last team’s presentation, the inherent optimism associated with design was clear in its ability to imagine different, and better, futures. As the healthcare specialists engaged with the problem-solving, brainstorming minds of the designers in the group, this optimism spread, and after 48 hours we had 12 teams with 12 prototypes that took everyday challenges as opportunities for creative problem solving. For instance, how can university communities be more inclusive? How can public space better consider those with vision impairments?

Learning from specialists

Dominic Campbell (Futuregov) started off the event with a call for designers to stop creating more and more ‘stuff’, exemplified by Denise Stephens, who, after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), found that her household furniture and products now did not meet her new needs. Denise went on to influence the landscape and meaning of accessible design through co-founding UK non-profit Enabled by Design.

Image: www.enabledbydesign.org. When Denise Stephens was diagnosed with MS, her home started to look more like a hospital. She began to question why aesthetics and accessibility generally don’t exist together.

With repositories of failed designs now emerging, such as architecture’s own Deadprize, Victor Papanek’s call to “stop defiling the earth itself with poorly-designed objects and structures” is still very relevant 40 years later. While the occupational therapists (OTs) in my group explained with elation the huge potential that 3d printing has in replacing the crude moulds that OTs are tasked with handcrafting, a view of the objects in Thingiverse or Shapeways shows that the majority of what people are making with 3d printing tool MakerBot are cheap plastic novelty items.

Images: www.hivemodern.com. Philippe Starck’s Hot Bertaa kettle for Alessi (top)  has poor functionality. ‘Paul’s kettle’ (bottom) is a prototype for a universally designed kettle, produced at the London Enabled by Design-athon.

Learning from the end user

Spending two days with my group’s ‘muse’ Melanie Tran (check out her Tedx talk) gave us the ability to develop empathy with someone living with a disability like Mel. Yet it was the ability to involve end users as designers that was a crucial part of the process. Bridging the distance between the designer and the end user allowed us to question our assumptions, to test concepts and to quickly iterate on prototypes, ensuring that what we developed was highly useable and responded to the all-important criteria: designing for desirability.

A team at the Sydney Enabled by Design-athon tests the usability of their prototype, which aims to make gripping weights easier for people like Mustafa (centre).

By the end of the 36 hours, I felt I had understood why the term ‘design-athon’ derives from the word ‘marathon’ – we were exhausted. Yet unlike a marathon which moves along a linear path, “design is the redirection of flow” (Roberto Unger) that seeks to challenge existing models – of production, policy and service delivery – to create improved futures for everyone.

Charlotte Fliegner (charlotte.fliegner@archtam.com) is a consultant with ArchTam’s Strategy Plus practice in Sydney. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

The post Enabled by Design-athon Sydney appeared first on Blog.