'Tis the Season
Waging War With Cancer: The Season Has Come to Do Things Differently
| And what must this room be like to contain such an occurrence? While this scene does happen everyday in places all over it is unique to these parents. This place and this time are now marked. Something terrible has just happened. And how must the "arenas" for engaging the enemy be configured? Each location must enable that team to implement their specialized plan for that child their way. Alfred, Lord Tennyson penned "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" during the height of the Crimean War in 1854. The poem concludes with a glimmer of hope prevailing after great sacrifice when a noble cause was carried forth with courage, honor and strength of conviction (it was in the midst of this war that Florence Nightingale developed the foundational principles for modern nursing practices as she cared for wounded British soldiers). Cancer care providers are often faced with seemingly insurmountable odds and a properly planned, designed and constructed physical environment can greatly enhance their ability to deliver care. The places for people to engage the enemy need to be a reliable platform in which all manner of trust is given to perform to and beyond expectation. The design professionals creating these places need to know the significant issues facing the victims and their caregivers better than ever. George J. Mann, AIA, professor, College of Architecture, Texas A & M University, stated in the November 2009 issue of Healthcare Design, "We, as designers, have been subject to the criticism that we're not aligning our designs with real healthcare needs, that we're functioning as technicians and missing the broader picture. We need to understand disease patterns, causes of illness and death, and come up with innovative design strategies to help prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat illness." The season has come to do things differently. We have to know the healthcare community better. We need to know what they need, why they need it and how to provide it. This means spending more time with them in more and different settings. The result will be significant relationships developed along the broad spectrum of participants: patients, families, physicians, nurses, technicians, researchers, administrators, vendors, and governing authorities. The perspective of time, commonly considered one of our greatest adversaries, will need to become an asset. Changing the way we structure time may become on of our greatest allies. Reevaluating priorities, processes and policies are inevitable. Developing new plans for delivering care and executing them in new ways will demand new facilities and the way they are provided. Lillibridge is well-positioned to help make a difference. Lillibridge desires to come along side healthcare service men and women to provide physical environments that create optimum conditions for delivering successful outcomes. Resources available to the healthcare industry are limited but the possibilities for discovery of new diagnostic and treatment technology are not. The need for facilities enabling these activities to occur continues to grow. It would be a blessing to be in the room next door when the healthcare providers give a message of hope to the parents of the child spending Christmas in the hospital because they have the resources to care for the child. And it would be a gift beyond value to be in that room when the little one is "cancer-free!" and will be home for Christmas. Lillibridge desires to part of the team that provides both of these rooms and many more like them. | Tags: cancer, children, |
