SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Sanford Children’s Hospital has made it easier for sick kids to imagine their doctors as knights in shinning white armor, instead of lab coats, with a new $60 million, 179,000-square-foot facility designed to resemble a storybook castle.
When the doors to the new Oklahoma Department of Mental Health’s Forensic Center in Vinita opened in July 2008, patients and staff were welcomed into a medical facility offering the latest in technology and patient safety.
Four years ago, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health retained PSA-Dewberry, a national architectural firm, to design the new 200-bed forensic center that houses patients deemed incompetent to stand trial and those judged not guilty by reason of insanity.
History is often the element that ties people in rural communities together, but if that history also applies to an active healthcare facility, the community could have a problem on its hands.
Until the recent opening of a replacement hospital, Bell Memorial Hospital in Ishpeming, Mich., held the distinction of being the oldest hospital in the state. The 90-year-old facility was crumbling as it continued to serve patients from the former mining communities at the midpoint of Michigan’s isolated upper peninsula.
