Two new eClassroom long-distance learning programs on women’s health-care facilities are now available on the Web. They are based on sessions presented at the “Women, Children, and Healthcare: Designing Facilities for Distinctive Needs” conference, sponsored by the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health, November 19–22, 2003, in Chicago. Both courses, one on trends and the other a building case study, offer health-safety-welfare continuing-education credits.

2004 Trends & Unique Issues Panel (course number AIA20)
An enhanced definition of women’s health began in 1985 with the recognition that women’s health care was very decentralized and fragmented. Today, it is the buying power of women that can provide the vanguard position for the delivery of health-care services in a coordinated facility. The women who led the charge for changes for birthing facilities are now middle-aged and will lead the charge for changes for all stages of women’s health. The “Third Generation of Women’s Health Services” panel addresses the facets of what it means to address women patients with respect for their dignity, time, and intelligence. Specifically, users of this course can expect to:

• Gain information about the trends in design of women’s services inpatient and outpatient facilities
• Review the various services that compose “women’s” health vs. “just maternal” health care
• Study the significant impact that design has on nursing efficiency
• Review some of the business aspects of women's services to justify the facility expense
• Gain knowledge about the “third generation” of women’s health services and why they are different from most existing services
• Review national benchmark examples of third-generation facilities and service programs.

The instructors for this course are:

• Kathleen Bajo, principal, Smith Hager Bajo, who has more than 25 years of experience planning and marketing women and children’s health care
• Bruce K. Komiske, executive director, Children’s Hospital Foundation, who has had the opportunity to plan, build, and operate five new hospitals
• Celeste R. Phillips, RN, EdD, an internationally recognized expert and leader in family-centered maternity care, who has pioneered efforts to improve maternity care through family-centered practice for more than 40 years and currently is president of Phillips+Fenwick, a women’s health-care company
• Robert D. White, MD, director of the newborn intensive care unit at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Ind., who serves as the clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Notre Dame Campus and as an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame. He is a member of the revision committee for the AIA’s Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospital and Health Care Facilities.

This course offers two HSW LU credits. For more information or to register, visit the eClassroom site.

The Northwestern Women’s Tower (course number AIA19)
The presenters discuss the program, objectives, and design for a new women’s hospital at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The ambitious vision for the new hospital is to lead the nation in providing comprehensive health care throughout all stages of a woman’s life. The presenters detail how the functional program transitioned into the planning options that ultimately determined the design. Within their discussion of the overall design process, they highlight their greatest challenges:

• How to enable appropriate patient flow despite site limitations that precluded ideal adjacencies
• Whether women’s health care should be delivered bundled or unbundled, and the optimal mix of services
• Planning and communication of the neonatal-intensive-care-unit module development
• The degree to which the women’s hospital should be purely contextual to the main hospital or have its own identity.

The course instructors are:

• Anne M. Bolger, senior vice president, Women’s Health, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, who, in addition to her administrative experience, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing
• Chris E. Liakakos, AIA, ACHA, principal and director of Healthcare Practice, OWP/P, Chicago, whose range of experience spans from community hospitals to academic medical centers
• Percy (“Rebel”) E. Roberts III, AIA, president, VOA Associates, Inc., a national architecture firm based in Chicago, whose specialty is creating healing environments.

This course offers one HSW LU credit. For more information or to register, visit the eClassroom site.

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