Blog Contribution by Teri Lura Bennett RN, CHID, CID, IIDA, EDAC.
After completing a diploma program, and then earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), Teri Lura Bennett’s first career was as a registered nurse. She decided after working 12 years at the bedside that someone should be designing the spaces who knew what it was like to work in them! She thought, “Why not me?” Teri had always been torn between a creative career, and a service career, and she felt it was a great way to have both of her interests in one job. Teri went back to school for interior design at Maryland Institute College of Art. She spent most of her career as the in-house Senior Interior Designer at Johns Hopkins Health System – her dream job! She continued to work in nursing part-time for the first 10 years of her career as an Interior Designer.
While there is an “easier” path to become an Interior Designer, Teri states, “I would never give up being a nurse. It was just a wonderful experience.” Teri went on to become a Certified Healthcare Interior Designer (CHID) and is now active on the board with the American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designers (AAHID). As she finishes her career in Interior Design, Teri seeks to help other healthcare interior designers to benefit from her experience.
Teri Lura Bennett RN, CHID, CID, IIDA, EDAC, NIHD
One of my most memorable times doing a presentation at Johns Hopkins Health System is … we were doing a final design presentation to the Emergency Room Department. So we are showing them all of these beautiful things with lovely pictures, and I of course was there representing Hopkins, and we had a consultant architect doing the presentation. And one of the nurses raised their hand and said, “Well that floor looks great, but can you clean it?” And I said, “That is exactly the type of question you should be asking us. Do not let us razzle dazzle you with all of this pretty, beautiful, lovely pictures. Everything looks good one day one. But if you can’t clean it and maintain it, don’t do it.”
-Teri Lura Bennett RN, CHID, CID, IIDA, EDAC
Attending an EDAC Coaching Workshop.
As we know, nursing is grounded in evidence-based practice, so seeking out an EDAC coach felt like a natural fit. Teri states, “Design decisions shouldn’t be just gut feelings; you need to have some evidence to support them.”
After earning the Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) credential, she worked on field testing at Johns Hopkins Health System; for example, a flooring study testing 16 different flooring materials to see which one could be maintained best, which ones held up, which ones were easiest to roll patients on, etc. After collecting all this information, she wondered, “How do I share it? How do I get the message out? Do I write an article? Do I just write a report and send it to people? What should report look like?” This was first when she contacted the Center for Health Design to be an attendee at a coaching workshop. After attending her first EDAC workshop, Teri wrote the report and sent it to FGI, and it was included in FGI’s Beyond Fundamentals!
If any NIHD members are involved in any research projects, or field tests, write it up, get your data out there. Just put it in some kind of organized format. You have to share that information because it’s valuable information and it will help somebody else – to make their job easier and frankly to raise the bar on the whole quality of our healthcare environment. And we are so overdue for that. The pandemic has forced us to do a lot of things, and I think a lot of it is actually good. It forced us to really take a look at how we are cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting our environments.
-Teri Lura Bennett RN, CHID, CID, IIDA, EDAC
Teri Lura Bennett RN, CHID, CID, IIDA, EDAC, NIHD at a workshop.
Becoming an EDAC Coach.
After having been a participant in an EDAC workshop herself, Teri offered to be an EDAC coach. She has tandem coached with Barbara A. Dellinger, MA, AAHID, IIDA, CID, EDAC, President of Dellinger Consulting, and coached on writing furniture specifications so that you get the product you need and want. She says the best thing about coaching is that those requesting a coach are paired with a coach that can directly assist them, and everyone is on the same page.
On being an EDAC Coach.
Teri feels very strongly right now that if there is anything she can do to empower other interior designers to have more confidence in themselves and in their ability, she will do it. She encourages them to reach out to one another … anything she can do to help them to not make the mistakes she did.
Influence of Nursing.
Her career in nursing is why Teri became a healthcare interior designer. A lot of the same things about nursing, she brought into healthcare design, such as helping each other, working as a team, and the best design projects are the same. “Having a passionate team makes it more than just work,” she says.
Benefits of EDAC, according to Teri:
8 Steps: The organized 8 steps process of EDAC mirrors the scientific method and is highly logical and iterative.
Application in a variety of settings: EDAC was essentially formed to be healthcare-centric, but is now being expanded because the principals of evidence based design are not only beneficial to healthcare design, but also education, workplace and hospitality.
Evidence-Based Design: You need evidence-based design to future-proof your projects.