Healthcare

Designing with care for care

Somerton Clinic

We partnered with Loven Contracting on the design-build of Somerton Clinic by Sunset Health. We worked closely with the staff at Somerton Clinic to create a space that would fit their clinical needs now, and into the future.

Designed and built with trust

Sunset Health is a non-profit organization with 17 Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinics in the Yuma region of Arizona. These clinics provide critical healthcare services to low-income and migrant families in the area. With federal funds made available, Sunset Health had the resources to create a new facility that would expand services in Somerton.

Our partnership with Loven Contracting drew on a long history of collaborating on healthcare projects across Arizona. A design/build method of delivery allowed us to collaborate closely for maximum efficiency and cost savings for the client’s benefit.

Choosing efficiency with care

At Dekker, we start every project with taking the time to truly understand the needs of both the client and the users. In discussions with Somerton Clinic, it became clear that they wanted to show their commitment to healthcare in the Yuma region by creating a “statement” building with a large, two-floor footprint.

We brought our experience in creating more efficient workflows in top of market healthcare spaces into our conversations with the clinical staff. A busy clinic with limited resources, the staff had never had the opportunity to think about or implement workflow improvements. We wanted to ensure that this well-deserving clinic was getting a design that would work for their current and future needs.

Layered Graphics + Fillable Shapes Somerton3

We led the staff through an exercise of “choosing by advantages”. Instead of simply listing out “pros” and “cons” of every design decision, we created a system of factors that the staff could then weigh on a scale of importance. This granular look at their needs guided the design and allowed us to maximize the budget in spaces that would have the biggest impact on the staff and patients.

In navigating between the owner’s desire for a statement building and the users’ need for efficient workflows, we moved away from a two-story approach. Instead, we designed a more energy-efficient one-story design with a large statement lobby that incorporates clear wayfinding. The result is an impressive building that saves the client in operating costs.

Simplifying wayfinding and amplifying privacy

The new Somerton Clinic adds 27,530sf of services to the Somerton Community. The clinic offers dental services, mental health services, adult and pediatric primary care, chronic disease self-management education, and medical health coverage enrollment services.

Patient privacy and having separate spaces for staff emerged as a priority in the design. Our design includes creating clinic “pods” that include onstage and offstage areas. Each “pod” has staff-only spaces, maximizing patient and staff privacy. Staff enter clinic rooms from the offstage area, while patients enter from the more public onstage corridors. This way, staff have a private place to discuss patient care, and wayfinding for patients is simplified.

The offstage, staff-dedicated areas were designed with tall ceilings and access to natural light, creating a relaxing environment to support staff wellness. Onstage patient areas were carefully designed with clear wayfinding elements such as consistent colors, icons, and letters.

Somerton now has a Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinic with efficient workflows that support patient and staff wellness and privacy.

Client
Sunset Health - Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinic

Location
Somerton, Arizona

Size
25,001-50,000 sf

Disciplines