Partnering with Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) has provided JJCA the opportunity to work with one of the nation’s largest and most respected behavioral health facility management companies — and one of Fortune 500’s World’s Most Admired Companies for 2011. UHS’s belief that community-based hospitals will remain the focal point of the healthcare delivery network is consistent with JJCA’s mission of creating special places for healing within community and rural facilities.
Springwoods Behavioral Health, completed in July 2009, was one of the first new behavioral health facilities built for Universal Health Services. The intent was to design a facility that could be easily modified for different sites and patient mixes. Each element — bed units, education, outpatient day hospital — can vary its size based on a particular area’s need. With a simple expansion the hospital can add 40 beds. Each of the key departments is also set up for growth, including administration, day hospital, dietary and education.
Evidence-based design studies strongly suggest that access to the outdoors improves patient outcomes. Psychiatric care is no exception. Each of Springwoods Behavioral Health’s units offers patient access to a walking trail, outdoor play courts, views of the 123-acre Audubon Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary, along with access to playground equipment for children and adolescents.
(Click here to read our own Michael Speck’s recently published article on how rural hospitals can take advantage of evidence-based design principals.)
More than two years of planning with UHS design directors, clinical staff from other facilities in Arkansas, and operators of several area hospitals went into the design of Springwoods Behavioral Health. For example, special planning sessions were held regarding the patient room and toilet shower rooms, ensuring that all of the elements — from door hardware to toilet paper dispensers — were evaluated in terms of optimum patient safety. The fully collaborative design process incorporated contractor involvement to determine customer value and best system options and was a precursor to the more formal Lean efforts used by UHS and JJCA on current projects.
Because UHS is nationally known, the design of Springwoods Behavioral Health has comprehensive input with regard to patient safety. As a result, Springwoods has become a standard for UHS to judge the effectiveness of the design elements, and to continually improve patient safety throughout their system.