By AHH Chair, Teresa Endres, AIA, ACHA, EDAC & AAH Co-Chair, Jeremy Hoffman, AIA
As one of the Four Pillars of healthcare architecture, the Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) serves to provide education and networking opportunities to healthcare design stakeholders. The vision statement from the AHH is, “Together, we will improve the world by serving as the authoritative voice for the design of healthy environments, leading the way to effective future practice, and advocating with those who share our goals.” The AAH committee co-chairs, Teresa Endres & Jeremy Hoffman – both from Taylor Design in Sacramento, are eager share our advancement of the AAH Vision, our past successes, 2022 goals, and current challenges. First, the successes!
HCAi Partnership
The partnership with Chris Tokas of HCAI and Teresa Endres of AIACV AAH was established in the fall of 2017 and has been one of our principal successes we’d like to celebrate. This partnership has resulted in the monthly HCAi Share, as well as some of our highest participation in AAH webinars, with one webinar reaching over 550 participants!
Our partners at HCAi who have made this possible are Richard Tannahill, HCAi Deputy Division Chief and Supervisor of the Building Standards Unit, Ali Sumer, PhD, SE, Supervisor of the Seismic Compliance Unit, and recently retire North Region Supervisor, Diana Scaturro. The extraordinary time and collaboration our HCAi partners have dedicated to this partnership has been remarkable, and has served to further the AAH mission, “The AIA Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) provides knowledge which supports the design of healthy environments by creating education and networking opportunities for members of – and those touched by – the healthcare architectural profession.” We are grateful to Richard, Ali, Diana, and all of the HCAi staff who have collaborated with us to make our webinars and HCAi Share such a success.
The 2022 monthly HCAi Shares have covered a variety of topics to date—and we have many more planned for the future.
INSERT LINKS TO VIMEO RECORDINGS on highlighted
- Methods & Procedures sneak peek
- CAN 1-7-153 Amended Construction Documents
- New HCAi Dietary Guide
- CAN 2-11B Accessibility Q&A
- HCAi Preapproved Prefabricated Components & Systems (PPCS)
Webinars
Another AAH Committee success has been the variety and popularity of our webinars. We have had presenters from HCAi, Sutter Health, UC Davis Medical Center, Kaiser, and the Sacramento LGBT Center, presenting topics as specialized as imaging modalities and the HCAi PIN 68, as well as topics that reach beyond health facilities such as our panel discussion such as: Convergence: The Pandemics of COVID-19 and Health Disparities. Among our goals this year is to do another joint webinar with the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee during Experience Architecture on equity in the design of healthcare facilities. Among our upcoming webinars are:
- ADA in a Day – Accessibility for Healthcare Facilities, presented by Sutter accessibility expert and CAsP, Bill Zellmer on Tuesday, June 28th.
- Trauma Informed Design for the Emergency Department: Sexual Assault Response Facilities (SARF), based on the recent Healthcare Design Magazine feature article and presented by Teresa Endres & Aaron McKenzie on Thursday, June 30th.
- Mod | Fab: Prefab & Modular Design for Health Facilities, presented by Scott Brown & Laurel Harrison of DPR on Monday, June 27th.
- The HCAi Emergency Design Guide, the Design Guide is expected to be issued soon and when it is we will have a webinar which will be presented by HCAi Deputy Division Chief, Richard Tannahill and HCAi Emergency Design Task Force Team Leader, Teresa Endres
The Chapter’s AAH committee has a number of goals we are pursuing this year. They include:
Improved Communication: As co-chairs, we have dedicated ourselves to more consistent advanced notice and widespread circulation of upcoming meetings and events. As with all volunteer positions, it’s been challenging managing project work with being co-chairs of the AAH committee. Therefore, we have implemented monthly check-ins to be more effective at getting the word out about upcoming events and the monthly HCAi Share topic. In 2022 our goal is to rely on subcommittee champions to assist with this goal.
Resuming In-Person Events: As conditions permit, we are hoping to resume in-person events (seminars, social gatherings, project tours, etc.). We don’t currently have any in-person events planned, but we’re hoping at a minimum to bring back the summer and fall AAH Happy Hour, as those events are dog-friendly and outdoors. We miss seeing you all every month and we’re looking forward to the day we can resume our in-person meetings and events.
Technology to Support Statewide Education: Before the pandemic our AAH committee received many requests from other chapters in the state to join our meetings and seminars virtually. At the time we were challenged as to how to achieve this, but with the improved technology that the pandemic accelerated, our goal is to work with AIA California on a pilot project to continue to provide quality education and outreach to all California chapters in conjunction with our in-person events.
AAH Subcommittees & Need for Volunteers: One of our goals has been to have greater and consistent involvement from our design community and industry partners. Sutter Heath and DPR have been great partners who have not only have staff on the AAH committee, but they provided staff to present webinars and have been financial supporters of the chapter.
We’d like to encourage our design community and industry partners to get involved. If you’d like to present a webinar, sponsor an event, or join our monthly meetings and HCAi Share, please contact the chapter and AAH co-chairs: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
If you’d like to join one of the subcommittees, we still need volunteers to be subcommittee members and subcommittee champions:
- Tours – Kelly Schreihofer (Champion), Kristin Hyatt, Jeremy Hoffman
- Webinars – Teresa Endres (Champion), need more volunteers
- Fundraising – Needs a Champion, Jeremy Hoffman, need more volunteers
- Design Awards (for 2023 Design Awards) – Needs a Champion, Teresa Endres, need more volunteers
We’re looking forward to another successful year for AAH. Thanks to all who have supported the AIA Central Valley chapter and the Academy of Architecture for Health committee. If you’d like to get involved, or have any questions, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]