The ASID Outcome of Design Awards, Part 2 of 3

Aerial view of Sheltering Arms Institute’s new rehabilitation hospital set in a heavily wooded site. All photography: ©Sheltering Arms Institute.

If you missed last week’s Part 1 of this 3-part series on the 2022 honorees of ASID’s Outcome of Design Awards, you may check out that article here. Or if you prefer, here is a short recap of what this relatively new Awards program is all about.

Street level view of the new hospital.

In the fall of 2018 ASID unveiled an awards program to promulgate the positive effects of great design on the users of completed projects and to celebrate examples of well-designed and (significantly) well-researched projects. Based on their design solutions, occupant experiences, and post-occupancy research, notable projects and teams were selected for honors by a jury.

Speaking of the awards, Gary Wheeler, CEO of ASID said, “Whether it was physical or mental wellbeing, productivity, or one of many other quantifiable factors, the Outcome of Design Awards were devised to go beyond aesthetics and delve into the rich thought and strategies that make a project successful—projects that in fact achieve measurable outcomes.”

The welcoming main lobby with multi-story atrium.

To be designated a Winner, projects must show that People, Place and Planet are a part of the design solution and measure at least one of these criteria. For 2022, ASID has created a new designation, Optimizers, these projects are “best of” award winners that have gone above and beyond the base criteria to measure more than one of the People, Place and Planet categories.

The Sheltering Arms Institute has been honored with an Optimizer Award.

Intuitive wayfinding and unit entry.

 The Sheltering Arms Institute, designed by HDR

 The Institute is a joint venture between Sheltering Arms Corporation (55%) and (Virginia Commonwealth University) VCU Health System (45%). The new, 114-bed, post-acute inpatient rehabilitation hospital consolidated existing beds from 2 Sheltering Arms locations and VCU Health’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation unit.

The old Sheltering Arms and VCU inpatient rehabilitation units needed physical upgrades. With only 30% semi-private rooms, limited private bathrooms, and a lack of up-to-date technology, the joint venture considered the existing facilities inadequate healing environments.

And from a business standpoint they needed to be able to increase patient volumes to reach sustainability in the market.

Large family-centered patient rooms support independence, accessibility and confidence.

Rather than just reacting reflexively when they recognized the need for a new rehabilitation hospital, they began thinking of the building as a therapeutic tool and put forth the vision of being a nationally recognized state-of-the-science physical rehabilitation hospital destination – combining the world-class teaching and research environment at VCU Health with world-class clinical practice guidelines developed at Sheltering Arms. In order to achieve the vision, HDR and Sheltering Arms leadership developed a design philosophy aiming to make the new hospital inclusive for all abilities, promote therapy “everywhere,” engage the senses, tell the story “power to overcome,” and plan for the future.

Access to daylight and the natural setting were key drivers of the design.

From the outset, research and feedback on nearly every aspect of the design and construction were major components of the plan. A Steering Committee and an OAC Committee were formed and key leadership from Sheltering Arms, VCU Health and the Design Build Team all committed to frequent, regular meetings for planning and to oversee the design and construction processes.

The C.O.R.E. gym

The design and construction phases included an impressive program of engagement with stakeholders. Over the course of 15 months the design build team members engaged in more than 200 user group meetings with 28 hospital user groups. Participants included more than150 Sheltering Arms and VCU health staff, board members, current and former patients and family members, as well as donors.  Average meeting duration was1.5 hours, with 10-30 attendees in each meeting.

Satellite gyms in the patient units.

To inform the design, the appropriate teams reviewed the latest literature and recent rehab practices and innovations, and built 3 full size mock-up rooms – conducting numerous 2 to 4-hour workshops and “just-in-time studies.”

Post-completion and move-in, the studies encompassed continued assessment of the design itself and how it connected to targeted behaviors of both patients and the staff.

For evaluation of the patient experience the Sheltering Arms Institute used semi-structured qualitative interviews with patients; sometimes including family members. The interviews probed the overall experience of the healing environment, how the environment influenced daily activities, perceptions of the environment’s effects on the sense of well-being, attitude, motivation and engagement.

Space for activities of daily living (ADL) practice.

To evaluate the staff experience they used the HDR CARE (Clinical Activities Related to the Environment) SCALE, a validated study method published by PLOS.org and available here. Among other things it measures how the building influences collaboration and effectiveness of the staff, considering environmental quality, access to daylight and views of nature, overall aesthetics and staff perceptions of the patient experience.

In qualitative interviews with patients on the patient experience the facility scored 9 of a possible 10.

The result of the careful and inclusive design planning and continuing collaboration with stakeholders throughout construction and occupancy is a facility that exceeds patient expectations and substantiates Sheltering Arms Institute’s reputation for being an innovative state-of the-science physical rehabilitation hospital destination.

You may download and read more about this exceptional project here. If you would like to download the FF&E floor plans for review, you may do so here.

Staff lounge with access to daylight and views.