Blog Contribution by Faith Bontrager, NIHD Board Member for Education
Each year at the ASHE PDC Summit, the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health coordinates a Student Challenge. According to the PDC Summit website, this exciting annual event is designed to stimulate critical inquiry, creative ideas and multi-disciplinary interaction between students and design professionals.
This year, the Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design sponsored 4 graduate nursing students from Louisiana State University (LSU) to participate in the challenge. When I arrived at the PDC Summit student challenge, spirits were high, although students later revealed their expectations were fuzzy. A 48-hour design challenge? It was “good” that nurses were involved, but that included answering a few questions while the designers, engineers, and construction managers worked, right?
Being a NIHD mentor was a new experience for me, but I had a good conversation with Dr. Yolanda Keys, who had developed the relationship between NIHD and the PDC challenge committee, advocating for nursing students at the challenge, collaborating with the committee, and connecting with a local nursing school.
After quick introductions, the four newly formed teams of students got acquainted as they walked the short distance to the local sponsor, Sizeler Thompson Brown Architects. The challenge – to design a primary care and urgent care center serving the healthcare needs of disparate populations in the warehouse district of New Orleans – was introduced.
The team re-walked the neighborhood and ideas began to flow.
What was the elevation? The traffic flow? Who were the people that lived in this area? What were their medical needs? What about those buildings that needed to be incorporated?
In the past, NIHD reached out to local nursing schools as a practical consideration. I saw this as a strategic choice. The nurses knew the rich culture of the city and were able to integrate cultural knowledge, patient needs and healthcare experience into design consideration.
THE WORK BEGINS.
We returned to the hotel and the ideas began to flow onto laptops and paper as work began on the required design elements as well as optional features. Cross training abounded as nurses learned design elements and educated on patient and staff needs. Instead of working within their own discipline only, health architecture, architectural engineering, construction management, and nursing students changed from “students” to professionals within their discipline, each with a seat at the table.
Eugene Damaso and Gabriel Auffant (ASHE), professors, and myself were available as resources as students worked through rough spots or needed to discuss options. Steve Templet, from Sizeler Thompson Brown also stopped in periodically. Friday evening, the teams gave their first presentation, illustrated by chart paper taped to the wall. How would they approach the challenge? Which optional requirements they were choosing? What was the overall design concept? They received feedback from the professional team. They pivoted as needed and worked into the night.
A CHANGE IN PERCEPTION.
With significant amounts of coffee and a delicious New Orleans breakfast, the work resumed Saturday morning. Teams were depending on each other’s professional knowledge, asking and answering questions, sometimes learning and using new skills to accomplish a huge task in a short time. One nurse commented to me, “I’m doing things I have never done before!” Perceptions changed as teams worked together.
Saturday, I was joined by NIHD board member Erin Clark. She contributed significant design knowledge as well as being able to answer, “What is it like to be a nurse consultant in design? What was your career path?
Saturday night’s presentation was via power point and evidenced significant growth. To add to the cultural experience the presentations were delivered while the Irish Italian Parade gathered on the street outside the hotel. Saturday was another late night for the teams, as teams were to turn in their final presentations the next morning.
Sunday afternoon, the teams delivered their presentations to judges and to PDC members who arrived early. While there could only be one “winner” – team 4 “Vou Healthcare”- I was amazed as I considered the growth of the individuals and of the teams, having watch their progression from designing spaces FOR healthcare to designing WITH healthcare.I saw the change in nurses from “dealing with” the space given to proactively learning elements of design, and digging in to discover solutions that will impact healthcare for the life of the building.
The PDC Design Challenge gave me the opportunity to be a part of innovation towards a growing industry. Faith Bontrager represented NIHD well and was an excellent motivator and mentor for the 72hrs we interacted. Faith saw something in me that I did not see in myself. It would be an integral part of healthcare and architectural design for NIHD and PDC Design Challenge to continue inviting future nursing leaders to participate.
-Jared Batiste BSN, RN (pictured), 2022 PDC Student Challenge Participant