As you drive up to the building, a cascading waterfall surrounded by greenery greets you. Approaching the main entrance, you pass by beautiful sculptures, and entering the building’s lobby, you’re struck by the beauty of the natural materials that surround you. Bright streams of natural light flood the room, illuminating everything with warmth. A glance out a window reveals a tranquil stream quietly running along the property.
As you continue walking past the nature-inspired artwork, you stop for a moment at a fireside seating area for a quiet moment and then continue on, eventually opening a door onto a rooftop garden, where you are greeted with fresh air and the fragrant aromas of plants and flowers. You take a deep breath and know that life is good.
It may seem like you’re at a beautiful art museum or botanical garden, but instead, you’ve just been walking through the newest hospital in the Lake Health Inc. system, TriPoint Medical Center, which just opened in October to excitement and appreciation. Cynthia Moore-Hardy, the president and CEO of the health system, has spent much of her time creating this new state-of-the-art facility.
“We’ve had a lot of positive response from our employees,” she says. “Just today, an employee came up to me and hugged me and expressed her appreciation for creating a work environment that makes them feel good and for creating patient rooms that she felt would be of great benefit to the patients and their families.”
The patient rooms are all private, and on top of that, the hospital has unrestricted visiting hours and quiet places, such as the fireside seating area and other glass-enclosed spaces, for family members to sit and have some quiet time to themselves if their loved one is sleeping. They also have “nourishment nooks” on every floor so if family members need a cup of coffee or to use the microwave, they don’t have to go to another floor or wing and can stay closer to their loved one. There are separate elevators for doctors and patients and a private patient discharge area so that someone doesn’t have to leave the hospital in the same place where it may be busier with incoming patients.
“We wanted to create, instead of a place where people feel like they’re going for sick care, a place that represented health,” Moore-Hardy says.
It was quite an undertaking creating a $155 million facility from the ground up, and when you’re doing something new, everybody has an idea and wants his or her fingerprints on it, so Moore-Hardy decided to tackle the planning process by using a team approach. In shaping any sort of goal or project, it requires getting input from other people, reviewing those ideas, creating a plan for where you’re going to go, and then communicating it to everyone else. This is how she led her 2,700 employees through the planning stages to create TriPoint.
