Pratt Design Studio has made a commitment to healthcare architecture because we understand that outstanding healthcare buildings are crucial to present and future generations. Many of life’s emotional experiences—birth, death, grief, suffering and joy—occur in healthcare facilities, where profound impressions, based on what we were feeling or the care we received, are forever forged in our memories. It is our mission to create environments that are more functional for caregivers and more comfortable for patients and their families during impressionable times.
We understand the financial constraints facing Healthcare today. Our philosophy has been that healthcare facilities can be cost effective, efficient and flexible while still being attractive. We accomplish this through integrating project teams, searching for creative solutions to complex problems, preserving future options and putting design dollars where they have the biggest impact.
We recognize that patient bed floors, specifically the patient rooms, are critical to patient outcomes. We are actively engaged in the research and development of rooms that reduce falls, integrate the family as part of the care team, allow the physicians easy access to the patient’s right side (where they were trained to examine patients) and reduce injuries to workers. Our Patient Concept Room at the Healthcare Facilities Symposium in 2007 was seen by more than 1500 industry professionals and was called by David Chambers formerly Director, Planning Architecture and Design Facility Planning Development of Sutter Health “Excellent thought translated into action.”
Healthcare today is also unpredictable. Flexibility in the concepts and buildings we create should allow clients to preserve future options. As an example, we know that the invention of a single drug could eliminate an entire line of interventional techniques. Since the Surgery, Cath and EP suites represent a significant financial investment, making them as flexible as possible is a high priority. Our recent projects at Loyola University Medical Center and Elmhurst Memorial Hospital have grouped these traditionally separate departments into Integrated Interventional Platforms so that they are easily changed from one to the other. Ken Majetich, Director of Building Design and Construction, Loyola University Health System stated: “The Pratt Team plugs in to our needs filling in the blanks of program development. They are a good balance between what we want and what we know. Their planning ability is such strength – they can see things we can’t figure out and they get it without a question. Pratt is way ahead.”
Patients have a choice about where they go to receive care. As a result, first impressions of a client’s institutions by patients and their families have an impact. The exterior of structures and the spaces the public circulates within are telling them about the facility and sets up an expectation of the care they will receive. Staff members are also influenced by the way their place of work is perceived. In most cases, the public spaces make up a relatively small percentage of the overall program and are therefore a cost effective way to create impact.
We believe that your buildings are the single largest physical manifestation of your philosophy and their expression should be unique. We are recognized experts in the cost effective integration of fine art into buildings. We have discovered techniques that allow our buildings to be much more approachable on a human scale by using symbols created specifically for you.
