CD2_FINAL_COATED:T43503-ChangeDesign Text.Qx6
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people participate in the decision about it, they’re going to be inclined to like it. So getting our nursing staff to accept the new room designs was a much easier task for management when, throughout our communications, we were able to genuinely remind our nurses that it was, frankly, their design. It was their input that helped create it; that they had literally pushed the bed around, pushed the iv poles around, moved the headboard placement around until we had reached a design everybody accepted. Have you in fact been able to attract and retain staff the way you wanted to? Well, take the doctors, for example. We did a rather sizable replacement of our operating room suites in this building, and we hoped our physicians would find working in our operating rooms superior to anything they could find in this community. And the early returns are great. Physicians are booking up all the available time we have. We had thought we would close down our old operating rooms once we were able to move into the new tower, but we are filling up capacity in the new tower, so we’re having to keep our old operating rooms open as well. It’s an expense we hadn’t planned on, but it’s nice to have problems like that. What’s been interesting for me is, every month I shadow one employee for a shift and follow them around. Sometimes I’ll help do the work. Most of the time I’m not qualified, but I worked a shift with a young lady who was cleaning rooms. We cleaned a room in the old tower, then we did a room in the new tower. And it was interesting to see how the thoughtfulness of the design, even in terms of housekeeping, made cleaning the room easier. Even the texture of the surfaces on the cabinetry in the room had been evaluated by the housekeepers. How often do you think hospitals actually consider their staff and their jobs in this way? I think everybody in healthcare is waking up to the fact that we have to keep our employees mentally healthy if we’re going to expect them to deliver great care. For example, when nurses are surveyed nationally, hospitals are starting to come out as the more undesirable place for a nurse to work. With the nursing shortage, all of us need to be cognizant of the kind of work environment we create for our nurses. So we were very sensitive to that in the design of this building. One of the things we created for employees was a large open space that is enclosed, and reserved only for employees. It was designed to be a haven for employees to escape the stress of their work. At the time, it seemed like it might be an extravagance; in hindsight, I’m very glad we did it. A lot of the design features we put into our operating area, windows to provide external circulation and outside light, also turned out to be wonderful. For staff, who work in a stressful operating room environment, to be able to step out between cases and immediately be bathed with outside light and a view—I’ve received numerous compliments from employees who are very grateful that we considered the stress of the job in the way the space was designed. It’s nice that they noticed. When I walk down the staircase in the lobby and look at our outdoor, running-water stream with waterfalls and little sitting areas, I love it when I see employees sitting out there taking their breaks. I want to stock the stream with trout and go out there at lunch and cast a little fly! I don’t think they’re going to let me do that, but the sound of the water, the way the rocks tie into the stone inside the lobby, I think our employees, and the public, get the architectural plan.
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What are you hearing from the public? What are your clues that they are in fact responding to the hospital in a different way now? Whenever I talk to people in the community, as soon as they find out that I work for Southwest, the next sentence always contains some reference to our building, to the look, to the community pride now that we’re here.