The new South Health Campus, a 165,000-square-metre facility now being built in south Calgary.
It will combine leading-edge health care with the latest in technology, research and education in an environment that focuses on providing a healthy, healing atmosphere for patients and staff.
The facility will help redefine the way health care is delivered within the community when Phase 1 opens in the Spring 2012.
The South Health Campus will:
- Offer traditional hospital services such as an emergency department, operating rooms, mental health services, obstetrical services, pediatrics, laboratory and diagnostic imaging.
- Provide sub-specialized services such as stroke care, heart-disease management and bone and joint care.
- Use innovative ways to provide care, such as stronger links between care in the hospital and care in the community, and new ways of health care professionals working together to make care safer and increase the efficiency of our health system.
- Incorporate wellness principles into its services, programs and spaces to support people and communities with their health and healing.
- Focus on research and education to continually improve care to patients.
- Offer the latest in health care technology and robotics.
- Provide a healthy healing environment featuring outdoor views, soft colors, natural light and relaxing sounds.
- Have room for expansion to help keep up with population growth.
In developing the concept behind the campus, planners paid special attention to the factors that challenge traditional methods of health care delivery, including a rapidly expanding and aging population. They also recognized patients are spending less time in hospital as changing approaches to health care and technological advances allow people to spend more time receiving care at home.
The South Health Campus -- will open with 260 beds and 280,000 outpatient visits and expand to 642 beds and 800,000 outpatient visits by 2017-18.
The Campus is being built as a partnership between the Region and the Alberta government, which is providing $1.25 billion for Phase 1 construction.
Publications:
- Knudtson, B., Fontaine, M., Steinke, C., Webster, L., & Taylor, E. (2011). Piloting a building performance evaluation tool: Evaluation of two inpatient units at an acute care hospital in Canada. Healthcare Design, 11(10), 20–20,22,24. "The government’s building performance evaluation (BPE) framework and scorecard methodology was described in the Pebble Report published in the May 2010 issue of HEALTHCARE DESIGN. Using a balanced scorecard approach, projects were to be evaluated according to four performance dimensions to recognize an integral relationship between: Physical performance: the design of the physical building and life cycle performance; Financial performance: operational factors and the fiscal bottom line; Functional performance: employee outcomes, such as satisfaction with the workplace, absenteeism, recruitment, and retention rates; and Service performance: patient outcomes, such as length of stay and satisfaction with the healthcare experience."
- Steinke, C., Webster, L., & Fontaine, M. (2010). Designed to perform: Exploring the relationship between research, design, and building performance in healthcare. Healthcare Design, 10(5), 22–22,24,26,29. “Combining principles of evidence-based design (EBD) and the balanced scorecard, the team developed a methodology that can be used to drive and measure the return on investment for all new and recently renovated healthcare facilities. As a member of the Pebble Project research initiative, Alberta Infrastructure is using this newly developed system to evaluate the effectiveness of recent projects in several areas and will use the findings to contribute to “the business case” of healthcare design.”