This $145-million replacement facility will house 158 inpatient care beds, a 100,000-sq.-ft. medical office building, and a 30,000-sq.-ft. ambulatory care center. The campus is designed to create a new healthcare experience, “breathtakingly better” than any other.

This quest provided the design team with the opportunity to ask questions that have never been asked before when designing a new hospital. This new design approach placed the patient at the center of the whole process. The approach became the driving force behind a new way to view the new hospital and became known as “the patient experience.” Unlocking the mystery to the ultimate patient experience, and the means for caregivers—as well as the new building itself—to help achieve this experience was the promise the design team had to deliver.

Project category: Project in progress (December 2008)

Chief administrator: Robert G. Porter, Executive Vice-President, Strategy & Business Development, (314) 989-2039

Firm: HGA Architects and Engineers, (414) 278-8200

Design team: Kurt Spiering, AIA, ACHA, Principal; Kevin Kerschbaum, AIA, Project Manager; Mark Debrauske, Designer; Paula Verboomen, AIA, Designer; Chris Vickery, Interior Designer; Robert Bonesho, Project Architect

Total building area (sq. ft.): 430,000

Construction cost/sq. ft.: $337

Total construction cost (excluding land): $145,000,000

To achieve this goal, a new vocabulary had to be developed. As a result, a new set of definitions were developed to describe how the various programs and elements are to be organized. Terms like “hotel,” “marketplace,” and “condominium” have become a part of the process team’s dialogue—a whole new view of what can be has been unlocked.

With this new vocabulary and other components offered by the design team—such as lean design principles, technology roadmaps, and future-state development—SSM Health Care’s St. Clare Health Center is well on its way to providing a new healthcare experience in a state-of-the-art environment envisioned by the client at the outset.