It's just...it's just something about the healing place. It's almost a religious
experience.
It is the environment of care.
Building it is the most important calling I can think of.
Mike and I met later in life. We had one of those -- you missed the train and
catch the next one and you meet your mate, you know. And it was just, it was
like we were meant to be. And then he got sick. My liver started failing big time
and from there that's how I started at Stanford. Mike was in the hospital
several years ago in the early stages of the building of the hospital.
And when we would go on our walks we'd come down to that far end of the hall
and out that window was this huge hole where they were building, so we
would go over there and just kind of watch the progress. It was,
it was cool.
We really want to give back and it got to the point then where we became
members of the founding Patient and Family Advisory Council. The Patient
and Family Advisory Councils, or PFACs as we call them, are core to the process by
which we integrate patient and family voice when we were soliciting feedback.
Usually in this process you talk to the doctors, the nurses, administrative
people, housekeeping people, etc. and what they're doing, but here we actually
reached out to the people who are the direct people we're serving. They were
the owners. There's nothing more important to us than the health and
well-being of our patients. For sure that means delivering the very best medical
care but it also means having an environment that's nurturing and
supports healing and well-being. We did a lot of work to identify what were the
needs that the patients had before we designed what the building would
accomplish. When you look at this building and its design, it really is
centered around that care experience, what is most important to the patient
and the caregivers as part of that environment. One of the things that we
started out doing was really trying to incorporate principles of design
thinking, doing lots of different interviews, observing patients and
families as they interacted in our existing buildings and then adding to
the existing design of the hospital. When we were talking to patients, it really
became obvious to us that the caregiver was just as much a part of the
experience for the patient as we were and addressing those needs of the family
or the caregiver was really important. So that translated into a space that was
designed on the third floor of the new hospital that's really dedicated to the
family and caregiver experience. The first floor is where patients and
families interact with the building with their shoes on and the third floor is
where you interact with the building with your bedroom slippers on.
Patients and families especially, they're there 24/7. This is their home as well.
They need places to go for respite. We didn't want that to be a secondary
thought in the building. The third floor has its own vibe. It's the heart of the
hospital and it's where they soften the edges. It's a place where people can go
to find information, do research on a particular diagnosis or condition and
then, most importantly, creating a serene environment that allows the caregiver or
family member to decompress. It's woven together, art, music, knowledge,
spirituality, nature, and it's everywhere on that floor, and makes all those
elements even more powerful.
From private rooms to the whole third floor with the meditation room, the
gardens, the way this has been designed, I just can't help but feel health
and healing.
About four or five years ago Michael and I separated. And I was here alone. It was a
pretty tough time for both of us. I was still coming over to the hospital quite
a bit because I was still doing my volunteer work. And every time I came by
I would stop and take pictures. And at that time it was just the steel
structure. And it was my way of communicating with Mike about..."look, the
new hospital's coming along! "Look how much progress is there!" It was really kind of
symbolic to both of us about the building and reconstructing and it was...
it was very healing for us. What I've always said about the old hospital and I
know it'll be the same with this new one is it's a miracle factory. I'm the
perfect example. I probably shouldn't be here. Which means I wouldn't be here with
my wife.
And she's funny and I like her.