Navigating a Complex Campus

It's sometimes easy to forget that the stress related to healthcare goes beyond medical concerns. Not only must patients and their loved ones navigate complex diagnoses, treatment and the complicated world of insurance (and more), but they also must often navigate unfamiliar campuses just to find their appointments and access their care. 

Unfortunately, GBMC’s hospital campus is no exception to that rule... We are built into a hill and have a very horizontal layout with three medical office buildings rather than one tower with easy-to-follow guides for each floor. Nearly every day, I encounter patients and visitors who are lost, and I think most staff and volunteers who frequent the hospital can relate. 

As I help these patients get to where they need to go, even I sometimes need to refresh myself on practice locations and building numbers. If a patient asked you how to find 6565 N. Charles St., would you remember that is the address for Physicians Pavilion East? It’s not something that I necessarily have memorized, although it would benefit us all to have that information on the fly so that we can be as helpful as possible when people are lost and stressed. 

Given this, I want to remind staff who come to the hospital about a few simple resources readily available at your fingertips so you can more easily help people find their way on campus.  

• You can bookmark this link on your phone for easy access to the campus map and building address information in one location: https://www.gbmc.org/patients-and-visitors/maps-and-directions. 
• 
  I encourage employees to download the GBMC wayfinding app by clicking here. This way, if you ever happen upon someone who is lost, you can easily pull up the app, enter the location patients are looking for and follow real-time navigation prompts. 
• If you are able, try to memorize our building numbers on North Charles Street in case patients don’t have the actual building name information handy. (You can also access these on our website of course, as mentioned above.) 
• Main Hospital: 6701
• Physicians Pavilion East: 6565 
• Physicians Pavilion North: 6535  
• Physicians Pavilion West: 6569 
• South Chapman: 6545 
• Brush up on the most convenient parking locations for each building: Lily for the Main Hospital, Iris for PPE and Tulip for PPN. For patients going to PPW, there are limited spaces available in Daffodil due to necessary repairs, so Iris is the next best alternative. And patients can always consider using the valet services available at PPW or the Sherwood Loop. Once the Promise Project’s new parking structure is complete, there will be more options. 

Do you have any ideas on how we can improve wayfinding? Or do you have any success stories related to how you’ve guided patients to your practices and departments? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments. 

Thank you to everyone who takes time to walk people who are lost to their destinations on campus each day. It is one small way we can help alleviate some of the stress that comes along with seeking healthcare, and I appreciate all who take the extra time out of their days to assist our patients, visitors, new employees, and anyone who is less familiar with our campus.