Image courtesy Hoefer Wysocki
Kansas City-based architecture firm, Hoefer Wysocki, and US Federal Properties (USFP), a Kansas City-based developer, have been selected to provide a new community-based outpatient clinic for the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System in Harlingen, Texas.
The new two-story clinic will consolidate existing mental health and primary care services into a single facility custom-designed to serve the area’s 25,000 veterans. The 6968-m2 (75,000-sf) clinic will feature the VA’s Patient Aligned Pact Care Team (PACT) model of care, which centers on patient-driven, proactive, personalized, and team-based care.
Inspired by the Corpus Christi Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, the clinic’s architectural and interior design will accommodate increased clinical capacity for expanded mental health and primary care services in an efficient, sustainable, and healing-centered environment located on an accessible site convenient to the existing VA Specialty Care Clinic, community amenities, public transit, and major transportation corridors.
Extensive windows, native landscaping, and thoughtful landscape design create a vital connection to the outdoors. A covered entry is intended to reassure and calm patients. Intuitive wayfinding, information kiosks, and patient education and waiting areas also contribute to a sense of well-being. Efficient clinical space layout allows staff to spend more time with patients, protects patient privacy, and minimizes fatigue.
A long-standing challenge within the veteran community is homelessness, which is often exacerbated by mental illness, Hoefer Wysocki said in a press release. Co-locating outpatient mental health care with primary care in a single location can accelerate outreach efforts and simplify access to mental health care, empowering veterans to improve their well-being. The new clinic will feature a robust technology infrastructure to enable virtual and mobile care, further improving outreach as well as veterans’ access to care.
In collaboration with USFP, Hoefer Wysocki is leading the architectural and interior design of the new healthcare clinic.
The multidisciplinary team also includes Jacobsen Construction (general contractor), Pape Dawson Engineers, Inc.(civil engineer), Bob D. Campbell & Co. (structural engineer), Smith & Boucher, Inc.(mechanical engineer), Land3 Studio LLC (landscape architect), FSC, Inc. (life safety), and Protection Engineering (blast engineer).
