Presbyterian Health Services, Rust Medical Center
PHS Rust Medical Center | Baptist St. Anthony's Hospital | Ernest Healthcare | Kayenta Health Center| PHS East Expansion | PHS Main Emergency Dept.
Born from the idea that the built environment can positively affect patient outcomes, the Rust Medical Center is an example of a hospital designed and built on the ideas of evidence based design and process improvement thinking. The facility is designed to maximize natural daylight and views and to minimize the risk of hospital acquired infections. Natural light and views abound on the west side of New Mexico’s Central Rio Grande Valley. Access to these amenities is a driving force of the design solution. Patient rooms all have very large windows providing healing properties of natural light, as well as the positive distraction that views to the many mountain ranges bring. Family waiting areas are also planned with views to the outside. The nursing unit is designed around a central light core that allows staff spaces to be flooded with natural light enhancing the work environment. The circulation space around the light core provides an “off stage” corridor for staff to have respite areas and work spaces away from the distractions of the patient unit. Critical functions like medication dispensing are placed away from unit distractions to allow staff to fully focus on the task at hand helping reduce errors.
The major functions of the facility, including a fully integrated medical office building, are planned around a central atrium area that will enhance way finding for patients and families. The lines between indoors and outdoors have been blurred with healing gardens located throughout the facility. The all private room facility also incorporates materials to help reduce noise to allow patients to rest without interruption.
Planned as a “plug-and-play” chassis where additional bed towers can be constructed and brought online with minimal disruption to the operating facility, flexibility and adaptability are the primary design drivers of the hospital. The diagnostic and treatment wing can easily expand by mirroring the interventional suite about the clean core to easily double the OR capacity. Planned growth from the initial 96 beds to a 350 bed facility in the future made this type of expansion capability a necessity. The nursing unit is planned around a model of care that is flexible in staffing ratios, as well as level of care provided. The unit can be grouped in pods of 2, 4, 6 or 12 patients depending on the configuration and level of acuity. Functions in the unit that nurses frequently require are decentralized to pods of 6 or 12 beds to reduce travel distances, including medication dispensing, clean and soiled linens and team care stations. This innovative nursing unit will save the average nurse almost 150 miles of walking per year.
Location: Rio Rancho, NM
Size: 460,000sf