More than metrics

Two months before the second anniversary of Haiti’s devastating January 2010 earthquake, the vision of a dignified and productive life for Haitians living with disabilities reached a major milestone this week as construction began on the Center for Rehabilitation and Excellence in St. Marc.

When it opens next year, the 6700 sf facility will transform immediate and long-term delivery of rehabilitation services in central Haiti while dignifying and normalizing the daily lives of people living with disabilities. The center will establish new national standards for rehabilitative care in ...[more]

Shepley Bulfinch welcomed Partners In Health co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer (“Mountains Beyond Mountains”) to our Boston office today, where he spoke at the unveiling of plans for a new rehabilitation and training center in Haiti.

We partnered with colleagues from Boston’s healthcare and design communities to deliver this pro bono project, joining with Partners in Health, Partners Healthcare, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, and the Mass Design Group to address the immediate and long-term demand for rehabilitation services in Haiti.

Carole Wedge welcomed 80 guests to this morning’s event. “We got as much as we gave in this process,” she said, pointing to the design response forged by a tight timetable, limited ...[more]

What are the benefits – and challenges – facing architecture firms seeking to advance knowledge-based design by conducting facility evaluations on their own projects? Angela Watson and Mardelle Shepley discuss the process for practitioner-focused facility evaluation (PFE) in the Design & Health Scientific Review section of the January 2011 issue of World Health Design.

In the article, Angela and Mardelle present a study conducted using different methods of practitioner-focused facility evaluation, drawing information from Shepley Bulfinch projects at Concord Hospital; Mass General/North Shore Center for Outpatient Care (including the ...[more]

In healthcare today, providing better care for patients increasingly means integrating complex technologies. As a healthcare leader planning a new or expanded facility, how can you construct and navigate a planning and decision-making process with such significant long-term implications? Start by asking the right questions.

To determine the required physical plant space for these innovative facilities, first define your current needs.

-       What would you like to gain or learn when using this type of equipment?
-       Do you want to introduce more than two modalities within a space?
-       How important will it be to plan for future upgrades?

Answers to these questions will have a significant impact on structural, mechanical, and ...[more]

What does it mean to have worked on one of the first Pebble Project hospitals – before there was a Pebble Project?  It’s a funny dynamic of simultaneously looking forward and back. How can we use innovative design to enhance the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare delivery today, in an era of lean operations and healthcare reform? How can research conducted on those innovative projects more than a decade ago inform design today?

When Shepley worked with Bronson Methodist Hospital on its replacement hospital in the mid-1990s, there really wasn’t ...[more]

For the third consecutive year, Interior Design magazine has ranked Shepley Bulfinch 10th nationwide in its survey of the country’s Healthcare Design Giants. The rankings and accompanying articles appear in the November 2010 issue of Interior Design. The ranking is based on 2009 interior design fees for healthcare projects.

The firm’s major healthcare clients in 2009 included Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital; Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, WI); Sherman Hospital (Elgin, IL); Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary (Boston, MA); and Mass General/North Shore Center for Outpatient Care ...[more]