Welcome to Movember, the month formerly known as November, which is dedicated to growing moustaches and raising awareness and funds for men’s health. My mates and I at TAYLOR have joined the movement and will be donating our upper lips to the cause for 30 days. Our moustaches (Mo’s) will spark conversations, and no doubt generate some laughs, sure; but all in the name of raising vital awareness and funds for cancers affecting men.

Why are we so passionate about men’s health?
* 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
* A man is diagnosed with prostate cancer every 2.2 minutes.
* 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.
* 24% of men are less likely to go the doctor compared to women. We kind of think we are too cool for doctors, and well, that’s a big part of the problem..

Please support our efforts by making a donation at http://mobro.co/TeamTAYLOR.
You can even write a check payable to Movember Foundation, reference Shawn Gosse’s (our team captain!) name and Registration Number 1652158 and send it to: Movember Foundation, PO Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726
If you would like to find out more about the type of work you will be helping to fund by supporting Movember, take a look at the Programs We Fund section on the Movember website: http://us.movember.com/about

Thank you in advance for supporting my efforts to change the face of men’s health.

Congratulations to Elise Drakes, one of TAYLOR’s project coordinators, for being selected as the recipient of the Chapman University’s 2011 Tomorrows Leaders Flex MBA Scholarship which is designed to tap into the up-and-coming business leaders of Orange County. According to Arthur Kraft, Ph.D., Dean of Chapman’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, Elise was selected “based on her strong commitment to enhancing the quality of healthcare design.”

Elise also brings people together to generate enthusiasm in others; particularly for her desire in helping non-profit organizations such as Share Our Selves (SOS), ACE Mentoring, Make A Wish Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club. Her passion for healthcare architecture and her dedication to helping others dovetail nicely with TAYLOR’s mission and principles of design and has enabled TAYLOR to extend its architectural practice much deeper into the heart of the community.

Elise is a multi-talented and self-motivated project coordinator working toward being a licensed architect. She has worked with the architectural teams for Hoag Hospital Irvine Renovation, and the Hoag Hospital Newport Beach Heart and Vascular Institute, and Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach.  Elise is also a co-project manager for the renovation of the SOS (Share Our Selves) free clinic project.

Her talents and skills coupled with her caring personality make her shine.  She is someone who will go far in her career and many others will benefit from her gifts and passion for life.

For additional information check out the articles on Elise by clicking the links below:

http://chapmannews.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/winner-of-60000-mba-scholarship-announced/

http://www.ocregister.com/news/drakes-304661-business-chapman.html

http://www.ocmetro.com/t-Chapman_Tomorrows_Leaders_Drakes06152011.aspx

I recently attended an awards banquet in December for the Miller Children’s Hospital Pediatric Inpatient Addition, where the project was awarded California Construction’s 2010 Best of Southern California Healthcare project. It was a proud moment sitting with the entire project team celebrating the project. In the midst of celebrating, I started to reflect on how the project actually carried a lot of personal meaning for me. Shortly after construction was underway for Miller, I found myself in another children’s hospital NICU with my first grandson. I witnessed firsthand how much children’s hospitals play a critical role in the lives of young children and their family members who need them.

Hospitals can be a scary place for anyone, even a grandfather, but more so for young children they can be terrifying. During the design and construction of Miller Children’s Hospital, Dr. Mel Marks, the project champion, continually expressed to everyone working on the project that this building is not just a hospital – this hospital is “all about the kids.”  The entire team of architects, contractors, consultants and construction managers all took that statement to heart. For me it struck a chord, and I had truly a new appreciation for what we designed. Everyone went the extra mile to make sure that this hospital is “all about the kids” and to make sure that it is a special children’s hospital that we can all be proud to have been a part of. I know I am and I know my experience will always play a part in what I put into a healthcare projects.

Posting by: Michael McLane  AIA - Principal

Photography by: Michael McLane Photography

When designing environments it is known that as designers and architects we must first listen and learn from those using the spaces we are creating; the care staff, patients, family members and visitors.  Everyday patients and families members are entering healthcare facilities more and more knowledgeable of their care needs; while their understanding increases so do their expectations of facility design and what they will provide.  As budgets become tighter and facilities become more pressured to validate spending the need to know if the design elements we are choosing to implement are making a difference.  Elements of hospital design have been shown to be related to patients’ psychosocial and physiological functioning.  The field of evidence-based hospital design seeks to “connect the dots” between environmental features and the physical and emotional well-being of patients, their families, and hospital staff, by subjecting the hospital built environment to scientific study and inquiry, and using this information to design measurably better hospitals.  In a research study I have been working on with two clinical staff members from Miller Children’s Hospital, we seek to learn more about the impact of a shared adult-pediatric surgical suite – and subsequently a new exclusively pediatric surgical unit.  This research study, which we are presenting at the 2010 Healthcare Design Conference in November, specially focuses on the partnership of Child life interventions and built environment and how the two can work together in creating an environment that assists patients and families through the pre-surgical process.

HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2010, November 16, 2010 @ 2:oopm

Alyssa Scholz, Associate AIA, Children’s Practice Leader, TAYLOR

Sandra Sherman-Bien, PhD Research Psychologist, Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center, Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach

Rita Goshert MA, CCLS Clinical Operations Manager, Child Life Department, Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach

When you think back to recent project accomplishments, what was the crucial factor in your success? If they key component was having a collaborative team made up of people possessing a variety of strengths, I would agree.

Several members of TAYLOR recently collaborated on the redesign of the bedroom of a 14-year-old boy named Timothy through the Make-a-Wish foundation. Timothy’s wish was to have a nicer and more relaxing room for a teenage boy to hang out with friends. Although our task was essentially to redecorate a room, when you think of it as granting a person’s wish from the Make-a-Wish foundation, that task becomes much more significant. Our project’s success can be attributed to the people who made it happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember back in the good old days, when we would sit around a campfire, roast marshmallows, share our feelings and  talk about whatever was on our mind at the time? Of course this was before computers and the internet came along, right?

Today, we’d like to think that social media is the new campfire – a giant one, where not only family and friends share stories and information, but where knowledge sharing among peers can happen too. Here at TAYLOR we want to share with you.

We have expanded our blog to include Talk Wellness to create discussion, share current relevant news and showcase ideas. Our new blog will include a variety of topics from innovation, the latest healthcare trends and design, to the latest community activity, or whatever interests us at the moment. TAYLOR and our staff have great ideas and stories to share and we would love to hear your comments.

So browse around and enjoy our campfire called Talk Wellness!

It’s amazing how conferences have a way of bringing people together with a common goal. Some conference attendees may hail from competing architecture firms or rival hospitals, but beneath any underlying contention, conferences strengthen a group of individuals with a unifying goal. This past year I attended a conference known as NAMA, The National Association of Medical Advancement, where common theme of the conference was the notion that women are different and yet the same. Tanya Abreu, an outstanding speaker and President of the Spirit of Women Hospital Network, described the characteristics of women and what makes us different and yet the same across generations. Women at each age place different values on money, freedom, time and risks; as a whole, however, women of all ages regard trust, relationships, and their health as the most important components of life. The common goals of women that transcend generations not only became the backbone of all discussions, but certainly serve as a key element in the design of women’s healthcare facilities as well.

Among all generations and backgrounds, women want to feel empowered. This statement was echoed throughout the day by various speakers. Women want to feel as though they are making wise decisions and are recognized as individuals. Marybeth Antone, an Imaging/Cardiology Director and speaker at the conference, recognized this need. She gave an uplifting chronicle of her journey to build The Silver Cross Center for Women’s Health in Illinois. To further focus on women as individuals, Antone and her colleagues launched the “I Matter” Program in 2008, prior to approval for construction of the new Hospital. The “I Matter” Program encourages preventative care for women by offering incentives for routine mammograms and cardiac screenings. While creating a method of tracking clients and forecasting local trends, the “I Matter” Program is an example of a strategic plan with genuine concern for women.

Trust and relationships, key values for most women, were acknowledged by many of the speakers. Margo Minissian, a cardiology nurse practitioner, kept these attributes in mind when establishing the Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. Recognizing that her facility would be a business built on endowments and word-of-mouth referrals, her team strove to build long-lasting relationships with clients, staff, and donors. While understanding the larger picture, the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Heart Center also focused on details: women are dressed in bathrobes rather than hospital gowns, and typical exam tables are replaced by floral recliner chairs. These indulgences add a personal touch to the patient’s experience.

While the NAMA conference succeeded in addressing the upcoming trends and niche markets within women’s healthcare, it also inspired camaraderie among attendees for the support of women. The lectures consistently resonated goals to make women healthier, more confident and self-reliant, to provide more freedom in decision making, and to increase a woman’s quality of life. Each speaker created a vision for health, inspired by women and the sincere instinctive desire within all of us to help one another.

I had an opportunity to hear an interesting presentation last week by Kyle V Davy, AIA at an AEBL (Association of AE Business Leaders, OC) meeting…he started the presentation out by referencing the devastating fires of Yellowstone in the 80’s…at first I was unsure, where is this headed? But he quickly turned to the beauty of the rebirth that happens after such devastation and all the new growth and blooming scents that follow…I was hooked!  It’s terrible to even imagine that it often takes tragedy to create and recreate good. Nature shows us that this is a part of life.  So what does that do for your business? What does that do for the specific part of the industry that you are in?  For me that’s Healthcare. Healthcare Reform, where do you begin… we won’t get into right now, but certainly it is a big part of the equation.   I specifically deal with a sector of healthcare that focuses on children and what the future holds for them.  Three issues are happening right now: patients that are in hospitals are the most acute; the cost of operating a hospital is a huge expense within the healthcare system; and the hospital itself highly impacted by Reform.

The trends look to how we get the services out of the hospital that are not required to be part of the hospital.  What will this look like? Master planning around uniquely designed outpatient campuses, which if you think about it could be very interesting in the case of pediatrics.  For instance, take your child to a routine wellness visit, drop him off at the “Gymboree” or learning center, have your own wellness visit, eye exam, dental apt, chiropractic, PT, blood work, or any combination that you can imagine, then do the shopping at the health food store all before picking up the kids!   If you can dream up the combination it could happen, all the while the services of the learning center are included in the co-op of outpatient services…how about that as a healthcare system concept? Giving away services as a part of the program that helps in the development of children, it would be wellness at its best….my point is that we have come to that point of “devastation” in healthcare, and now we need to come together to help one another. Let’s be in it for the collective good rather than for the individual gain.  Let’s create a rebirth in our approach on how facilities are being planned, designed and meshed into the fabric of our communities.

I recently attended the 2010 Advancements in Women’s Health over 40 in La Jolla. This was a conference focused on an array of topics ranging from GYN Cancer Care to Menopause. As I have attended these types events over the years, I have always taken away something to share with our clients to keep current on Women’s Health. This most recent conference was no different except that I found myself thinking more about how the information gathered could enhance my own health within the many topics covered. Once over 40, I think many women start to feel the inevitable passage of time. What we once used to shake off with a good night’s sleep suddenly takes a bit longer to recover from. At the same time we may begin to find a new freedom in becoming more aware of our bodies vulnerability and the importance to take action in our own health. In the last year, I have been fortunate to focus some effort on keeping my own health on track and in doing so hope that I am able to set a better example for my family and others around me in that regard. With our busy schedules, it is not always easy to do but the investment in doing so will certainly pay off if we make time for this an important part of our lives. Take care and be well!

There is nothing more inspiring than working with children. As an adult, I like to think that I am still learning and growing, but to see children of all ages learn and grow is something that I have come to enjoy as a part of my daily life. I share with you a truly inspiring project featured in the March issue of Interiors & Sources magazine. While working on this project which created a place where children can feel safe while receiving care, I was amazed and touched by the all the new friends and family that I have made through the process.