Gresham Smith Healthcare Market Leaders to Speak at PDC 2024

March 13, 2024

Gresham Smith is proud to announce that Project Executive Corie Baker, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, EDAC, NCARB, Fitwel Ambassador, and Healthcare Senior Interior Designer, Penny Houchens, IIDA, LEED AP, NCIDQ, and Healthcare Director of Research and Insights Lesa N. Lorusso, Ph.D., MBA, MSArch, RID, Allied AIA, along with project partners, will present at the 2024 PDC Summit in San Diego, California on Monday, March 18. Summaries of their presentations are below. 

How Innovative Collaboration Strategies Helped Baptist Health Care Build a New Campus in 48 months 

Presented by Corie Baker, Gresham Smith; John Porter, Baptist Health Care; Lee Thompson, Brasfield & Gorrie; Austin Schoech, Meadows & Ohly 

While the term “collaboration” is widely used, there’s buzz behind the buzzword. Effective collaboration among owners, architects and contractors is crucial to the successful planning, design and execution of a project. However, what does it mean to truly collaborate? And how does true collaboration lead to higher quality projects that benefit the owner?  Challenged by a 48-month timeline to bring 850,000 square feet to life, as well as the pandemic, the team designing and construction Baptist Health Care’s new campus in Pensacola, Florida, thought beyond the typical design-build process and implemented innovative and creative collaboration strategies for success. The project opened on time in September 2023, largely thanks to enhanced collaboration which led to more than 25 early award packages and construction starting just six months after design began. During this presentation, representatives from the owner, program manager, designer and contractor will use this real-life example to share the collaboration strategies and tools used to meet this aggressive schedule and provide a superior end product for the Pensacola community. 

Baptist Health Care Centers Evidence Based Solutions in the Design of its New Behavioral Health Hospital 

Presented by Penny Houchens, Gresham Smith; Lesa Lorusso, Gresham Smith; John Porter, Baptist Health Care 

Mental health conditions have become among the most common health conditions in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence of anxiety and depression has increased by 25% since the COVID-19 pandemic. When planning a new 57-acre campus in Pensacola, Florida, Baptist Health Care put a 72-bed behavioral health hospital at the forefront of the design. In this presentation, participants will learn how to identify evidence-based solutions to the unique challenges posed by the behavioral health environment, how to develop planning strategies that maximize safety, reduce incidents of self-harm and create a therapeutic environment, and how to implement post-occupancy studies and research to measure outcomes.   

More information and a full agenda can be found online here.