Edson Healthcare Centre
Healthcare & Wellness
Designed to feel more like a home than a hospital, the Edson Healthcare Centre (EHC) is a full service rural healthcare facility located in the Canadian Rockies foothills. The Centre significantly improves both access and quality of care in the community by consolidating services for community health and wellness, primary care, and acute care. EHC includes emergency, diagnostic imaging and laboratory, surgical suites, inpatient care units, ambulatory care, long term care, and a physicians’ clinic.
- Location
- Edson, AB
- Size
- 212,005 sq ft
- Client
- Alberta Infrastructure
- Completion
- 2016
- Sustainability Targeting LEED® Silver certification
- Collaborators
Burnstad Consulting
ISL Engineering
MMM Group
Stuart Olson Construction
Kom Lynn Associates
RMC Resource Management Consultants- DIALOG Services
Architecture
Electrical Engineering
Interior Design
Mechanical Engineering
Planning & Urban Design
Structural Engineering
There’s been a dramatic shift to a model of care that stresses the wellbeing of the patients and staff. Here, the design is functional, intuitive, and feels welcoming in a way that is refreshing.
Set in the low-lying lands that stretch between the Rocky Mountains and Edmonton, inspiration was drawn from the healing offerings of the town’s surrounding environment.
The building takes advantage of its sloping site with a two-level design which allows for intuitive wayfinding as well as daylight to flow throughout all levels.
EHC is a hospital you won’t get lost in. The design team simplified navigation with intuitive wayfinding through thoughtful planning and visual connections to the outdoors.
Large windows bring the outdoors in and infuses the space with an abundance of light. A two-storey glass wall runs along the ‘Main Street’ corridor that branches off to main areas of the hospital.
Patient rooms and corridors are arranged to take advantage of views into the courtyard and the magnificent outdoors, alleviating some of the stress that can come from hospital stays.
Each room has a large, operable picture window, providing a chance for patients to control their natural ventilation and have a visual connection to the outdoors where it is common to see wildlife.
Photographs of nearby nature from the Edson Photography Club add a sense of home. Strategically placed art helps with wayfinding and offers moments of retreat and reflection.
It’s a refreshing departure from a typically cold and sterile healthcare environment. In long-term care, individual curio cabinets outside every room allow patients to add their personal touch.
At EHC, the long-term care beds are organized into three 16-bed residential units to feel more like neighborhoods in a community.
A central courtyard creates a comforting micro-climate that provides relief from prevailing winds off the Rockies. Physiotherapy and rehab patients can use the courtyard paths as part of treatment.
Wood cladding on the exterior of the hospital is a nod to the community’s thriving timber industry.
The Team
Dr. Kevin Worry, North Zone Medical Director for Alberta Health ServicesWith the windows, the natural light and the view of nature, it actually advances one’s overall health, and the science is there to support it. So it’s impressive when you can actually use physical infrastructure to support health and to get people healthier quicker.
