cover story one
The Health Care Workforce Shortage
Multiphasic problems and solutions
By Kenneth Botelho, DMSc, PA-C
Workforce shortages are usually described statistically. In health care this is expressed in terms of too few physicians, too few nurses and too few PAs and NPs. These numbers also include too few behavioral health professionals, too few medical assistants and too few direct care workers. For many reasons, too many health care staffing vacancies lead directly to increased turnover and too many patients waiting.
Cover story two
Emergency Department Design: Meeting a growing demand
By Todd Medd, AIA & Tracy Nicholson
Visit an older hospital and you’ll oftentimes find an emergency department (ED) that was designed for a world that no longer exists. It probably does not address the current volume of patients and scale of technology or address issues posed by treating behavioral health and social complexity. Today, aging facilities demand far more from far less space, leading systems across the country to rebuild, or at least redesign, their emergency departments.
HEALTH CARE ARCHITECTURE
Designing Hope For Children: Improving Behavioral Health Treatment Outcomes
By Stacy Collins
Across Minnesota and throughout the nation, the behavioral health needs of children and adolescents continue to rise at an alarming pace. Anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use disorders and emotional dysregulation are affecting people at increasingly younger ages. Families, health care providers, educators and community leaders are grappling with a common question: How do we intervene early enough to change the trajectory of a child’s life?
Interview
Preparing for What’s Ahead
Josh Ripplinger AIA, ACHE, LEED AP, National Health Care Practice Leader at Wold Architects and Engineers
Health Care Architecture Honor Roll
By
Minnesota Physician Publishing
For the past 38 years, Minnesota Physician’s Health Care Architecture Honor Roll has recognized outstanding achievement in new facilities design. Medicaid funding cuts have put unprecedented financial strain on hospitals and clinics, ignoring how this affects many fundamental elements of delivering health care that requires a physical structure. Population growth and larger physical spaces to accommodate modern and constantly evolving technology, coupled with the natural process of buildings aging and becoming obsolete, requires ongoing new construction and remodeling. These considerations can be seen in many of the projects featured this year. Our thanks to all those who participated in the nomination and production process of presenting this year’s Honor Roll.
