GS&P celebrates hospital groundbreaking

Tampa, Fla. — Gresham, Smith and Partners announced the official groundbreaking for an expansion and renovation of the emergency department and patient tower at Florida Hospital Waterman. The phased project is a continuation of GS&P’s relationship with Florida Hospital Waterman.

“Florida Hospital Waterman is dedicated to serving our community with quality and compassionate care,” said Abel Biri, President & CEO, Florida Hospital Waterman. “With a growing community, we need a design that will meet the demands of today, provide us flexibility for the future and allow us to provide advanced care in a healing environment focused on enhancing the patient’s experience. We are so pleased that our expansion will help support those goals, particularly for our women and children patients served in this tower.”

GS&P is providing architectural and engineering services for a four-story addition to the existing hospital to expand the emergency department, relocate the OB and Pediatric program and shell two additional floors for future medical and surgical units. The expansion will house three new, large trauma rooms. The project also includes a major renovation of the existing emergency department and the addition of an iconic stair tower open to daylight. Florida Hospital Waterman is considered one of the most beautiful hospitals in the United States. GS&P’s design will further enhance the beauty of the hospital’s campus.

“In working with Florida Hospital Waterman, we looked at how the design of the ED and bed tower expansion and renovation would do more than simply support increased capacity. We aimed to add beauty, connectivity and value to the hospital and ultimately enhance the staff and patient experience through thoughtful and dynamic solutions,” commented Robert A. Berry, AIA, NCARB, EDAC. “By focusing on the confluence of patient safety, operational efficiencies, technology, adaptability, sustainability and the patient experience, the team is proud of how the facility will help advance care within the Lake County community now and into the future.”

The project supports Florida Hospital Waterman and Adventist Health System’s strategic goal of increasing integration within the network of care. For many patients, the hospital and ED are critical points of care, if not the entry points into the larger network of care. Connectedness supports complete, more holistic care, in turn advancing the quality of care. The emergency department design creates efficient expansion and contraction scenarios and improves connectivity physically and electronically. Part of the project includes a corridor joining the main hospital entrance and ED entrance, which should also ease wayfinding for patients. The design also promotes clinical collaboration staging physician work areas in a centralized location which not only improves staff experience but contributes to patient safety.

The new ED further supports patient experience by optimizing patient flow while maintaining separation to allow staff to triage patients more effectively. The expansion allows for a dedicated area of the ED to serve the pediatric population. A clear boundary between Pediatrics and OB units supports infection control while a new C-section room in suite means minimal travel distances and rapid activation.

The new stair tower amplifies the aesthetic appeal for staff and patients and encourages people to use the stairs thus contributing to building a healthy community. Both the ED and bed tower are designed to maximize access to lake views and daylight to enhance the patient experience.

GS&P’s dedicated Healthcare staff approach each project through the lens of Value-Added Design. Value-Added Design is a dynamic, holistic framework in which teams explore and define what is important to clients with a focus on key performance indicators: patient safety; operational efficiencies; integration of technology; adaptability/resiliency; healthy, sustainable buildings; and human experience through evidence-based design. This approach gives clients the opportunity to assess and prepare for inevitable market shifts.