A healthy blueprint

It takes a lot to build a hospital. Take windows. Not everyone knows that building codes require all patient rooms to have windows in them, Kent Loosle said. So the plans for the new St. Luke's Magic Valley Regional Medical Center include a rectangular hole in the top floor allowing patients in the nursery and postpartum rooms to have a little light.

Someone has to make all the little decisions, said Loosle, the hospital's chief operating officer. In this case, that someone was two teams of architects and as many as 200 hospital employees serving in 45 work groups and a steering committee.

We all like to have some control over the area we work in. Those in charge of St. Luke's Health System understand that sentiment, architecture and construction director Jeff Hull said. The whole process of designing the new St. Luke's Magic Valley hospital began with a simple question for hospital staff.

"They (the architects) sat down with a blank piece of paper and asked, 'How should you do your business?'" Hull said.

The basic design for the hospital was a mix of staff responses and studies of current use, Hull said. Administrators want a hospital they know will last for a few decades, and projections were based on how many people use the current hospital's services in its primary market: Twin Falls, Jerome and Gooding counties.

"We need so many rooms for patients to recover in," Hull said, citing examples from the studies. "How many surgeries do we do?"

The basic needs of each department - be it cardiology or respiratory therapy - were settled by its respective staffs on the committees. But they also had to work with the architects to decide everything from door hinges to paint schemes. For example, Hull said, a doctor's office or exam room will have a door that swings in to hide the patients in the room. But inpatient rooms are the opposite - nurses want to be able to peek in at night to monitor patients.

"They want to have the patients visible from the hallway," Hull said.

For the tone of the hospital interior, St. Luke's brought in an interior design firm with experience in the health care field, Hull said. The master plan contains several different color schemes, all based on the environment and all intended to promote healing.

"Studies have been published on the effectiveness of color on recovery," Hull said.

And mental benefits aside, some color choices have to be more practical, he said. A nursery with yellow walls will only make newborns look jaundiced.

Someone has to design the exterior, too, but the job is slightly easier. St. Luke's hospitals have a certain look, Hull said, even to the point where local brick wholesalers have named the largely reddish blend of bricks the "St. Luke's blend." For a Magic Valley touch, basalt from blasting for the hospital basement will be reused in parking lots and landscaping.

The cost of the hospital has gone up from the first quote of $120 million, but the increase is largely due to more square footage and increases in construction costs, Hull said. St. Luke's should be able to handle the costs - now estimated at $150 million for design and construction alone - and is moving quickly to try to minimize further cost fluctuations, Loosle said. As much as $30 million more could be added for furniture, technology and other costs.

It's just one more detail to be considered in the complicated process that will, they hope, raise a hospital building in three years' time.

Nate Poppino covers health for the Times-News and can be reached at 735-3237, or at npoppino@magicvalley.com.