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Designing for women’s health means planning spaces around a broader range of services and life stages—not treating a women’s center as an obstetrics department with a different name. The 2014 article by Gresham Smith, published by Building Design + Construction, makes the case for combining thoughtful service planning with convenience, privacy, specialization, and attention to the nature of care. Those principles remain useful prompts for project teams, but the article’s project descriptions and statistics are historical, not current facility specifications or clinical standards.
What does designing for women’s health involve?
It involves aligning a facility’s services, layout, and patient experience with the range of healthcare needs women may have over time. Depending on the community and the care model, a center might bring together obstetrics, breast cancer screening, cardiac care, wellness, education, or other services. The point is not that every facility should provide every service. It is that planners should define the intended scope before the building plan makes it difficult to coordinate care or expand it.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Gresham Smith’s 2014 article argues that women’s health centers can serve patients across life stages rather than focusing exclusively on pregnancy and birth. It frames convenience, privacy, specialization, and the nature of care as important planning considerations. These are the firm’s synthesis of experience and in-house research, not a universally validated ranking or a substitute for local clinical, operational, and regulatory requirements. Read the original article.
For a construction project, that framing makes the brief the first design decision. A building intended mainly for outpatient visits will have different circulation, waiting, and support needs from a hospital program that connects labor and delivery, postpartum care, and neonatal intensive care. A project team should therefore agree on who the facility serves, which teams and services belong in it, and how patients move between them before settling on a single image of what a “women’s center” should look like.
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How should a project team translate patient needs into design priorities?
Start with the care journey and the operational model, then use design to make that model easier to navigate, more private, and more supportive of patients and families. A welcoming interior cannot compensate for unclear service organization, unsafe circulation, or a mismatch between rooms and clinical workflows.
A practical planning discussion can work through four questions:
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- Which services and life stages are in scope? Identify the services the project is meant to support and which will remain elsewhere. Consider whether the program is outpatient, inpatient, maternity-focused, or a combination. Do not assume that co-location is automatically better; the right arrangement depends on the care model, staffing, and how often teams need to work together.
- Where do patients need privacy and choice? Map moments where sensitive conversations, examinations, changing, waiting, or family discussions occur. Then ask how the planned layout can protect privacy without compromising visibility, access, or staff response. Health Canada’s guidance for maternity and newborn services discusses privacy, accessible layouts, mobility, single-room maternity care, and patient control over conditions such as lighting and temperature. It is jurisdiction-specific guidance, not a universal code requirement. See the Government of Canada guidance.
- How will people find and reach each service? Trace the route from arrival through reception, waiting, care, and departure. Include the needs of people with mobility limitations and the people accompanying them. Make the patient’s route legible without relying on a staff member to explain every turn. The AHRQ hospital-design overview identifies easier wayfinding, reduced noise, and more privacy as factors that can improve patient satisfaction. AHRQ’s overview also discusses single-patient rooms and support for family interaction.
- What should the space support when care changes? Ask which room functions, equipment, or service relationships need flexibility, and what cannot be compromised for safety or infection control. Adaptability should be worked out with clinical and facilities teams, not treated as a vague promise that a room can serve every purpose.
These questions turn broad intentions into choices that can be checked against plans and operations. For example, “privacy” needs to be considered in room placement, circulation, and communication as well as finishes. “Family support” needs to be reconciled with room size, access, and care requirements. The NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s 2023 Design Guide for Health is a further planning reference, but it is specific to New South Wales and should not be mistaken for a U.S. code or a universal standard.
Which services might belong in a women’s health center?
The service mix should reflect the local program rather than a fixed checklist. The 2014 article names women’s cardiac care, breast cancer screening, wellness, education, alternative care, and obstetrics as possible parts of a broader offering; it does not say every center should include them all.
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That distinction matters in early planning. Adding services can create opportunities for coordination, but also affects space needs, patient routes, staffing relationships, and the way the facility is operated. A team should test proposed co-location against the actual service model: Which services share patients or support functions? Which require distinct environments? Which would be better connected operationally, even if they are not in the same suite or building?
In an outpatient center, a coherent arrival and navigation experience may be central because patients could be visiting for very different reasons. In a maternity hospital program, the relationships among assessment, labor and delivery, postpartum care, and neonatal services may be more consequential. These are planning distinctions, not claims that one model produces better clinical outcomes. Design can support communication, privacy, wayfinding, and family interaction; it cannot replace adequate staffing, clinical protocols, or professional judgment.
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How do privacy, accessibility, and family support affect maternity design?
They need to be planned together with safety and clinical visibility. A family-supportive room still has to work for the people providing care, while a layout designed for staff access should also respect patient privacy and mobility.
Health Canada’s maternity and newborn care guidance describes family-centred care alongside safety. Its design-related discussion includes accessible layouts, mobility, privacy, single-room maternity care, and patient control over conditions such as lighting and temperature. Those points can help a project team frame design questions, but the guidance is Canadian and should be applied in context, alongside the local jurisdiction’s requirements and the facility’s clinical protocols.
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For a design review, teams can examine whether the plans provide clear routes for patients and families, whether private conversations and care can take place without unnecessary exposure, and how the room supports the intended balance of patient control and staff access. They can also ask how family presence affects circulation and usable space. These checks are more actionable than treating “family-friendly” as an amenity label.
Patient experience also depends on details beyond the room itself. AHRQ’s overview points to noise, privacy, and wayfinding as factors relevant to patient satisfaction, and discusses single-patient rooms and family interaction. These are design considerations, not a guarantee that any particular layout will deliver a specific result. Operational practices and the care environment matter too.
What can the 2014 project examples teach designers?
The examples in Gresham Smith’s article illustrate different ways to organize services and support the experience of patients and families. They are descriptions published in 2014, not independently verified accounts of current facilities, amenities, or operations.
- Patricia R. Guerrieri Pavilion at the Dorothy Mangurian Comprehensive Women’s Center HealthPlex: The article describes a reported 20,000-square-foot expansion combining women’s care with complementary services and community amenities, including a café, art gallery, and spa. The example raises a planning question: which non-clinical spaces reinforce the center’s intended role, and how should they relate to care areas?
- Sarasota Memorial Hospital: The article says women’s services were co-located on one floor in a new patient tower, with the NICU directly above labor and delivery and connected by a dedicated elevator. It illustrates a vertical relationship between maternity and neonatal services. Whether a similar arrangement is appropriate elsewhere depends on that facility’s clinical model, staffing, circulation, and safety requirements.
- Morton Plant Hospital’s Doyle Women’s Initiative: The article describes a 115,000-square-foot project spanning assessment, antepartum, labor and delivery, postpartum, and NICU services. It also notes clerestory windows that brought daylight into the NICU. The example shows how a project can organize a sequence of services in one broader program; the article does not establish a clinical benefit from any individual design feature.
- Sky Ridge Medical Center: The 2014 article describes a women’s center that was under construction at the time, including gardens, balconies, a coffee bar, fireplaces, and children’s play areas. That construction status is historical and must not be read as current. The design choices are examples of amenities the article associated with a supportive environment, not a required package for every project.
- Miami Valley Hospital South: The article says its labor-delivery-recovery rooms accommodated family and different birth techniques, with equipment concealed behind casework when not in use. This example prompts a practical design question: how can a room feel less equipment-dominated while keeping necessary equipment accessible and supporting the clinical team’s work?
Taken together, these examples are most useful as prompts, not templates. A project team can compare the service scope and life-stage coverage of possible models, then test privacy and patient control, clinical access and safety, wayfinding and movement, accessibility, family accommodation, and operational links between teams and units. The 2023 NSW guide can inform health-facility design discussion, but its jurisdiction-specific context should remain clear when a project is elsewhere.
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How should teams handle the article’s demographic claims?
Treat them as historical statements from 2014, not current planning data. Gresham Smith’s article reported that women made “80% of household decisions regarding healthcare” and that the number of women in the high-risk age range for breast cancer was “expected to increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years.”
The underlying source for the 80% figure and its present-day validity were not established in the article’s supporting material. The breast-cancer statement was a forecast made in 2014, with a projection horizon ending around 2029; it is not a current forecast. Neither figure should be used as a substitute for current, local demographic evidence or service-demand analysis. Their relevance here is that the original article used them to argue for attention to women’s healthcare needs—not that they establish today’s market size or facility requirements.
What should a construction brief specify?
A useful brief connects the program to the building decisions it will require. It should state the intended services and patient groups, how care is organized, and the design priorities the team will use to evaluate options. It should also identify which assumptions need confirmation by clinical, operational, facilities, and code professionals.
At minimum, project teams should document:
- Program scope: Which services are included, which are excluded, and how the facility serves patients across the intended life stages.
- Operational relationships: Which departments need to be adjacent or connected, which patient and staff routes matter, and how the plan supports communication between teams.
- Patient and family experience: Where privacy, accessible movement, wayfinding, family interaction, and patient control are priorities.
- Room and space expectations: Which activities each space must support, what equipment and support functions are required, and where flexibility is genuinely needed.
- Applicable requirements: The local codes, standards, clinical protocols, and jurisdiction-specific guidance that govern the project. Guidance from Canada or New South Wales can inform questions but does not automatically apply as local law elsewhere.
Then review the plan against real journeys and workflows, not only a room list or a rendering. If a proposed space is meant to support family presence, check the circulation and care requirements with the teams responsible for operating it. If services are grouped together, confirm that the grouping makes sense for the intended model. If amenities are proposed, define their role and relationship to clinical areas. This keeps design intent tied to use rather than relying on a general promise that the facility will feel welcoming.
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The core lesson from the 2014 article remains a planning one: women’s health design is not a single-room or single-service problem. It is a question of how a facility organizes care, movement, privacy, and support around the population and services it is actually meant to serve. The strongest answer is therefore specific to the community and care model, and grounded in current local requirements rather than historical market claims or borrowed project features.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a women’s health center need to include obstetrics?
No. The 2014 article presents obstetrics as one possible part of a broader service mix, alongside other services, rather than as a defining requirement. The facility’s purpose and local care model should determine whether maternity services belong in the program.
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Can the 2014 article’s 80% healthcare-decision figure be used in a business case?
Not on its own. The article attributes the statement to Gresham Smith in 2014, but the underlying data source and current validity are not established here; a business case should rely on verified, relevant local evidence.
Does a family-centred maternity room mean unrestricted family access?
Not necessarily. Health Canada’s guidance discusses family-centred care while also emphasizing safety, and the practical rules depend on the facility’s policies, clinical protocols, and applicable requirements.
Are the named project amenities still available at those hospitals?
The examples are descriptions published in 2014, and their present-day status has not been verified here. Confirm current services, layouts, and amenities directly with the facilities before relying on them.
