A ‘Weiss’ Choice for Design … Westchester General Hospital

Interior designer Brenda Weiss knows hospitals. She’s worked in them – as a rehabilitation counselor and social worker. Since 1992, however, she has been using the experience and understanding of her earlier career to enhance the look, aesthetics and functionality of the healthcare environment.

“For the past 14 years, Westchester has been a loyal client and I have designed many departments in both Westchester and its sister hospital, Southern Winds,” she says.

“Currently I am working on their three-year four-phase expansion project which includes a new patient floor, the new operating rooms and Radiology department, the new ER and ICU as wells as the new conference center and administration offices.”

Brenda says that although she has worked with many other hospitals over the years, Westchester “feels like family.”

Westchester, like many hospitals of its era, offers challenges and creative opportunities.

“It’s been a wonderful project,” she says, but one with a specific challenge – namely to create environments which are well integrated into all of the existing departments, as wells as to begin a ‘standardization’ program for future program for future renovations.”

“Many hospitals, as they expand, can wind up with a ‘patchwork quilt’ look to them. One can easily identify an era or decade based on the color trends of the time. The difficulty is in developing a common element which will thread the departments together for a well-integrated aesthetic.”

Healthcare design is often a weave of art, function … and psychology. Environmental psychology to be specific. Brenda Weiss believes that understanding an environment and its effects on those who share that space is integral to effective design. In fact, she hopes to complete doctoral work in this specialty.

“While all environments have effect on the human being, healthcare environments are special in many ways. The question I start off asking is ‘how can my design of this space actually participate in the therapeutic process and promote wellness?’

She first defines the specific patient population or department from the psychological, physiological, physical, emotional, sensory, and perceptional aspects. For example, she would pay critical attention to the differing needs of adolescents, the elderly, and Alzheimer’s patients – with color, texture, comfort and safety.

“The more specific the needs of the patient population, the more critical the design becomes and more attention to detail is required,” she adds.

“For instance, in designing in-patient psychiatric facilities, one must consider that every element could potentially be used as a weapon – either for self injury or to harm others. Furniture must have non-removable drawers, mattresses cannot have springs, artwork must be in plexi-glass, and window treatments must not have cords or rods. And one must keep in mind that any items can be hidden in the grids of acoustical ceilings.”

Weiss is seeing more changes in healthcare trends and design. “Evidence-based” design is a phrase common prevalent in the contemporary designer’s lexicon.

“Much research is being conducted and the results are available to designers, particularly through the EDRA (Environmental Design Research Association). The concept of evidence-based design is that a design should be validated by research, rather than simply by personal tastes and preferences. For example, in selecting artwork for patient rooms, research suggests that representation artwork of nature versus abstract artwork has more beneficial effects on a patient’s perception of pain. Further evidence suggests that photographs of nature can actually have more beneficial effects, as indicated by a patient’s request for less pain medication and shorter hospital stays.”

“Research is suggesting,” Weiss says, “that humans are ‘hard-wired’ to seek out natural settings which have restorative properties on one’s general sense of well being and health.”

She also sees significant nods to color and color psychology, incorporating humor and comedy into design, “universal design” for functionality and maneuverability for the elderly population, and environmentally sensitive “green design.”

She adds that cost-consciousness to develop and deliver a design that is within a budget framework is also key, as well as using materials that meet stringent healthcare regulatory requirements.

Whatever the challenge or creative opportunity, Brenda Weiss is translating life and professional experience into healthcare environments that are aesthetically pleasing, stimulating, functional and welcoming … by design.