The Veteran’s Affair Medical Center, located in Nashville, Tennessee partnered with Wold to renovate their Medical Intensive Care Unit. In all, this renovation encompassed approximately 10,300 sf and was completed in 2012. This renovation helped carry out part of their mission to improve design practices that would lead to better patient centered care at the facility.
This renovation included thirteen (13) patient rooms, a centralized nurse station, a controlled medicine room, support space, offices, and a large conference area. To improve visibility, all patient rooms were designed to be in direct line sight of the nurses’ station and to include full glass, sliding doors for improved visibility and access. Overhead patient lifts were installed in each room to aid in transferring patients between stretchers and beds. An additional eight (8) nurse workstations are located just outside and between the patient room entrances allowing quicker workflows and windows for continuous patient observation. The process of including satellite nurse stations such as this is an easy way to improve operational efficiencies by reducing steps taken by nurses during the treatment process.
Four of the patient rooms were designed to meet specific pressure isolation requirements to treat different illnesses. Two of these rooms serve as negative pressure isolation rooms with ante rooms, and two serve as positive pressure rooms. In addition, two patient rooms were designed with additional space in an effort to meet the facilities treatment protocols in relation to bariatric patients.