GWINNETT COUNTY, GA. - Just eight years after we built our first outpatient facility on our main hospital campus at the Gwinnett Medical Center, we had the chance to do it again on the other side of the county. This time, we applied what we learned from the first experience to make the Glancy Outpatient Center, our second facility, everything we now knew it could be.

A productive (and plush) waiting room
While conceptualizing the design of our new, 55,150-square-foot, $20.5-million combination day surgery center/diagnostic facility and adjacent medical office building, we knew we had to break away from the traditional hospital environment. Our first outpatient center, which admittedly has an 'institutional' feel, was a springboard for our new center. To determine how we could best create a more positive atmosphere, we held patient and physician focus groups.

	FACILITY: Glancy Outpatient Center, Duluth, Ga. WEB: writeOutLink("www.gwinnetthealth.org","1","sb") IN SHORT: Rarely do we get the chance to do it all over again. They did at Gwinnett Health System - and made the most of the opportunity. The facility's design is especially noteworthy because the concept came out of earlier experiences with the health system's first outpatient facility, as well as patient and physician focus groups.

Here's the most important thing we learned from our patients and their families: While they don't want to wait for a long time, they want the ability to use their time as they wish when they are waiting. This, we discovered, goes a long way toward preventing negative impressions, even when the wait is prolonged. So, rather than design a waiting room with rows of chairs and an occasional television, as we did in our first outpatient facility, we created individual 'pods' within our 2,100-square-foot waiting room. We built an indoor play pod for parents with children, as well as an adjoining, outdoor play area as part of a garden area that connects the outpatient surgery/diagnostic center with our medical office building. For people who wish to work on their computers or read, we created a private pod with telephone and outlet access. We also created separate, television-viewing pods.

We also learned that family members always want to know the status of their loved ones, especially when surgery takes longer than expected. To encourage physicians to talk with family members, we created a private consultation area. Now, our nurses make a point to call patients and physicians into the consultation room right after each procedure, and this has truly improved communication.

Physician-friendly, too
Surgical patients, for example, follow a semi-circular pattern by first entering the preop preparation room, then walking back to the OR, moving through Phase 1 and Phase 2 recovery, and ultimately leaving the facility through a dedicated 'postop exit' on the side of the building. Importantly, this exit keeps postop patients separated from patients who are just entering the facility for surgery or testing. We also created storage alcoves along the OR corridors to temporarily house stretchers and other equipment, and this helps keep foot traffic flowing smoothly. In our older outpatient facility, stretchers and other equipment sometimes line the OR corridors. Finally, we created entirely separate locker room and dictation areas for the surgeons so they can make the most productive use of their non-surgical time.

Color and light
To further break from the hospital tradition, we integrated natural light, color and artwork throughout the facility. Natural light elevates the mood of everyone in the facility, and research shows that it promotes patient recovery. We integrated glass into the design wherever possible, added high windows to the waiting area, and built skylights into the OR corridors and the preop holding and recovery rooms. We added splashes of green and purple throughout the facility, and we worked closely with a consultant to select artwork that would be soothing to our patients. All of our artwork is characteristic of the impressionist style and depicts images found in nature. It adorns the otherwise plain stretches of wall space along our corridors.

The next time around
Since the 1980s, Gwinnett County has been one of the fastest growing counties in the country. Between April 1, 2000 and July 1, 2001 alone, the number of people in this increasingly affluent, high-tech metropolitan Atlanta county grew 5.6 percent-to 621,528.

By 2025, 1.2 million people are likely to live in Gwinnett County, and we have applied for a certificate of need (CON) to build another, 64,064-square-foot, $25-million outpatient facility as part of a large medical campus 10 miles to the north of the Glancy Outpatient Center. Although the CON has been denied, we are optimistic that we will ultimately receive approval to proceed with construction of our third outpatient facility.

Still, we think we did a lot of things right when we built the Glancy Outpatient Center, and our patient and physician satisfaction scores are proof positive. A 2002 survey of 100 patients in each of our outpatient facilities showed that patient ratings of admission speed, waiting room appearance and directional signs are about 10 percentage points higher for the new facility. For all of us, the difference between the two facilities is like night and day.