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Celebration Health Reviewed
By Barbara J. Huelat, ASID, IIDA

Like a long-awaited movie release, Celebration Health has finally opened. Is it everything it was predicted to be? Or more?

Being a healthcare designer and a Disney groupie, I have carefully followed the development of Celebration Health as well as the town of Celebration in Orlando, Florida, over the past several years. So it is with great pleasure that I present my thoughts on this new facility, not only as a designer, but also as a patient.

A patient? Yes. En route to the airport for a conference in Tampa, Florida, recently, I took a nasty fall. I had a terrible pain in my right arm and couldn't rotate my wrist. However, I quickly rushed off to catch the plane. Later that evening, the pain continued, the swelling grew, and I suspected something might be broken.

I decided I needed to go to the emergency room. Now, Tampa General Hospital was just across the river, but Celebration Health, which my husband (a healthcare architect) and I wanted to see, was about 100 miles away. So we took a shuttle to the airport, rented a car, and drove to our anticipated Nirvana.

The health center was easy to find, with clear signage directing us effortlessly to the front door of the emergency room. My first thought was, "this is not a hospital--it looks like a resort."

Once in the emergency room, a triage nurse graciously took my information. She then invited us to wait in the waiting room. I quickly scanned the room for design, function, layout and amenities. I was impressed. There is good flow, beautiful furnishings, a huge spherical fish tank, windows, great art, and a really wonderful children's playroom complete with novel sloping floor--definitely a Disney extension.

After a short wait, we were called and I was examined in a large, well-appointed intake room--no 6' x 8' cubical curtained areas at this place! It was determined that my arm did need treatment. We were then taken to an exam room to wait for the physician. A disarming attendant dressed in simple attire with celebration logo and colors showed us where we could obtain snacks and beverage.

The Emergency Department is a typical functional layout with a fresh new design appearance. Exam rooms are private with amenities of an upscale private doctor's office building, including a TV in each room. Radiology uses the new filmless imaging. However it was not easy to take with us for my physician back home. Instead, they later converted it to film and sent it to us.

Perhaps our only disappointment was similar to the typical complaints of traditional emergency rooms: the long waiting time. We waited in the only room available to us--a drab seclusion room--for more than two hours, knowing that we were surrounded by glorious, but inaccessible design. Where were the positive distractions that we read about? Where were the hand-held beepers that should allow us to walk around and return when called?

We were frequently kept informed, and the physician did come, read the x-ray, and set my arm. We had arrived at 5:30 p.m. and finished at 9 p.m. As we were leaving, we walked through the public areas of Celebration Health, and everything seemed to be closed, including the wonderful healthful-looking cafeteria, consumer library and wellness center.

On our brief tour, we were truly impressed with the beauty of the surrounding area. It has the character of health spa resort, not a hospital. It is easy to navigate. We saw none of the institutional carts lining the halls, or negative medical smells. This does not appear to be a stressful place. The main outpatient waiting room is an atrium space with appointments that would put most hotel lobbies to shame, with a full multi-screened video wall with stress-reducing images and sounds.

My husband and I give Celebration a 4.9 star rating, with the recommendation to extend the facility's amenities to the emergency room. The facility is absolutely beautiful, patient-friendly, and a delight to the senses. It meets most of our design objectives. However we wondered if similar emergency room gaps extended to other dedicated patient care areas.

To learn more about the facility, visit the Celebration Health website at www.celebrationhealth.com. It is also on the tour program for the Symposium on Healthcare Design in November.

Barbara Huelat and her husband, Joe Parimucha, AIA, are healthcare design specialists and principals of Huelat/Parmimucha Design in Alexandria, Virginia. She can be reached at B_Huelat@msn.com.