Healthcare Spaces is an invitation to visit impressive new work by some of the leading architects and interior designers serving the nation's health care institutions. Its vivid, four-color pages offer a personal guided tour of America's latest healthcare facilities, de-picting over 100 projects with 400+ color images from more than 30 design firms. Healthcare administrators, physicians, medical planners and their architects and interior designers will find this an excellent way to assess how public and private institutions are coping with the opportunities and challenges of managed care, advances in medical science and technology, aging populations and the drive towards patient-focused care.
What these installations strikingly reveal is a profound change in the delivery of healthcare. The determination to contain health- care costs, for example, is hastening the shift from inpatient care to ambulatory services, specialization to target specific needs of service area populations, and consolidation by independent institutions into regional networks. Healthcare professionals as well as architects and interior designers will find exciting new ways to approach their work, from dignified private patient rooms to a vibrant, life-affirming children's hospital.
320 pages 9" x 12" 400 color photos hardbound 1-58471-056-X
The editor of Hospitality and Restaurant Design No. 2 and Corporate Interiors No. 4, Yee has assembled a catalog of 100 medical and fitness facilities recently completed in the United States by 34 top design firms. The photos are glossy, and the text is upbeat. The complete package, however, recalls Stephen Verderber and David Fine's condemnation of "coffee-table books [that] tend to provide scant narrative on planning and design and tend to eschew critical analysis" (Healthcare Architecture in an Era of Radical Transformation, Yale Univ., 2000). Oblivious to the inequitable and chaotic state of our nation's healthcare systems, Yee depicts the healthcare environment as a Shangri-La where pampered consumers exercise "the power of choice" in settings reminiscent of luxury hotels or spas. For a better understanding of current trends, get the Verderber and Fine book. Yee's book is recommended only for healthcare administrators, architects, and design consultants who prefer not to be distracted by the troubling realities of healthcare provision while they ponder color schemes, fabrics, furnishings, and ambience. David Solt‚sz, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., Parma, OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
