SSM Health transforms space into behavioral health unit

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SSM Health Saint Louis (Mo.) University Hospital recently opened a new behavioral health inpatient unit. Located on the fifth floor of the hospital’s Bordley Tower, the nearly 27,000-square-foot space once housed medical-surgical and intensive care units but now has been transformed into a setting that combines safety and a community-minded focus to provide therapeutic healing.

The architecture firm Lawrence Group designed a pod system layout for the space consisting of four pods of ten to 11 patient rooms each. The pods are supported by a shared core space equipped with laundry, staff break rooms and restrooms, nourishment areas and staff workspaces.

The nurses stations are strategically located for visibility across each wing but also to provide separation. The stations feature laminated safety glass and vertical aluminum stanchions to create a protective space where health care workers can complete charting activities and prepare medications.

“The pod system provides better control and better patient care as the two nurses assigned to each pod are only caring for five to six patients each,” says Lawrence Group associate principal/health care planner Ganesh Sathyan. “Extensive use of glass at the nurses stations helps eliminate blind spots. Careful use of artwork helps de-institutionalize the environment, thereby ensuring a better patient recovery outcome.”

The patient units themselves feature a dorm-like design, providing a private space with individual restrooms set off by saloon doors.

Other areas in the unit include quiet rooms, consultation rooms, medication stations and day/dining rooms. Design elements such as soft curves for patient corridor walls, radiused edges on wood-look elements on the ceilings and corners of the nurses stations, tamper-resistant millwork and wall-protection printed artwork bring comforting and biophilic elements into the space.