How hospital wayfinding is important to healthcare.

Just as street signs point visitors to Battery Park or the Lincoln Tunnel, buildings' internal wayfinding systems give patients and visitors a sense of place and guide them through complex spaces to their final destinations.

Clear, concise wayfinding systems have become especially important in healthcare--an industry that is expected to reach $45 billion in construction by 2009, according to FMI, a construction research firm. Successful healthcare facilities realize that good wayfinding is synonymous with good patient flow, and that applying simple organizational, architectural and graphic principles not only reduces patient stress and anxiety, but can lead to improved patient outcomes, profitability, safety and staff utilization.

In New York City, where the 2000 Census estimated that 36 percent of the population was foreign-born, multi-lingual wayfinding systems are being implemented in a growing number of hospitals. For the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Hillier designed a graphic wayfinding system that uses a Limited English Proficiency approach to ease the concerns of non-English speakers. For interior signs and materials like take-home maps and brochures, the hospital's departments messages are spelled out in eight different languages--everything from English and Spanish to Mandarin and Urdu. Already implemented at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, the wayfinding system identifies public destinations and the address is supported by pictograms, graphic icons and printed orientation maps. Strategically placed multilingual signs at key gathering points reinforce the directional information.

Visitors to the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick encounter a similar graphic wayfinding package that includes take-home maps, written directions and on-site maps and directories to augment the internal wayfinding elements. The transparency of the institute's six-story addition also offers patients and visitors clear views of where they are or where they want to be. Skylights and views to gardens and downtown New Brunswick in other areas of the institute keep spaces open and connect patients to the outdoors.

Architecturally, good design starts with good planning. Hospitals can become a maze of disconnected, disorienting spaces due to the complexity of their functions and programs. To combat this problem, designers "layer" or zone spaces, gradually moving from public to private.

Hospitals like Gouverneur Healthcare Services in New York City are using this layering approach to reinvent how patients move from entry to treatment.

The design of the forth-coming renovation and addition will create an active and engaging entrance area that easily disperses patients to waiting areas. Set along the perimeter of the hospital, the waiting areas are filled with natural light and offer great views of the city. Patients can then filter back to areas for check-in, registration, consultation and treatment.

Similarly, Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, Pa., employs a three-story glass atrium centered around the hospital's main elevator core to create a natural focal point for visitors. Appropriately known to hospital personnel as "The Beacon," the atrium provides patients and staff with a highly visible landmark that makes navigating the building easier.

Applying good design and nonverbal cues uniformly makes wayfinding intuitive, reducing much of the fear and anxiety associated with hospital visits so patients feel more relaxed, comfortable, and ultimately, healthier.

By Steve Gifford, AIA, Colin Mosher, AIA, and John Bosio, SEGD