Day nine: Massachusetts
Friday 26 March 2010
8.00am and we’re on our way to meet Shepley Bullfinch architects and tour some of their recent health projects, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre.
During the presentation with Shelpley Bullfinch, we discussed the changes which clinicians had to deal with when adjusting to single room care for patients, which is something we have to deal with on another of our projects. Shelpley Bulfinch also described how important light and views are, when planning any type of care facility. Signage should also be less complicated than we often find, as it only confuses users.
Boston Children’s Hospital was our first stop, where we met with the Director for Facilities Planning and Construction and Engineering. This is an exciting place full of colour and a buzz of activity. The hospital is a mix of new and old buildings which had been seamlessly integrated. There is art everywhere, even integrated into the building itself, with a timeless feel about it. One ward has a seascape theme with boats and starfish painted on the windows and the flooring was patterned with waves.
There was clear accessibility to the patients, from neonates to young adults, who all interestingly shared the ICU, and each room had parent facilities, even if only a quiet area to sit.
Over a working lunch, we met with two senior directors at Partners Healthcare, who are responsible for Massachusetts General Hospital and North Shore Center for Outpatient Care, where we discussed the model in more detail. Again it was clear that there are synergies with the back of house activities such as HR and Finance.
We then dashed off to visit Deaconess Hospital part of Beth Israel, where we had a tour of the Emergency Facility and meet with the team to hear how they had remodeled their triage care.
We also met their Lean Manager, who was managing change and looking at process reviews. This is extremely interesting for us and one of the points made was that they train their senior people to drive change throughout their culture, whilst also engaging with the workforce by role modeling what needs to be done a form of walking the talk! Seems like we might be on the right track with the way we are looking at this. Interestingly even the patients are included in this work and now the process is applied to all business plans, ensuring that they have been thought through and that they will provide what has been planned.
After this we had a quick presentation on Energy Management and finished our tour with a look at the Shapiro Clinic. This is a beautiful building with an old facade and a very modern interior. Apparently the method of construction isn’t generally used in the UK, but Keith Lawrence has a great understanding if you have any questions.
It seems our tour is now complete, it’s been extremely good and there is so much that we have all learned. Although no visit state-side is complete without a trip to a Celtics Basketball game!