By Edward Marcey
As hospitals face increasing patient volumes and complex care demands, community health centers have emerged as crucial partners in supporting hospital systems. According to the National Association of Community Health Centers, community health centers serve a record 32.5 million people nationwide, or 1 in 10 Americans. By integrating key clinical services, community health centers alleviate pressure on urban hospitals, enhance continuity of care, and improve health outcomes—particularly among underserved populations.
Preferred Clinical Spaces in Community Health Centers
Community health centers are evolving beyond basic outpatient services to include a range of clinical spaces that directly support hospital systems. Common services provided at community health centers include primary care, imaging services, urgent care, orthopedic services, rehabilitation and physical therapy, pharmacy services, and specialty clinics. By making these services local and accessible, these centers facilitate timely diagnosis and treatment, enhance patient recovery pathways, and improve treatment compliance, particularly for chronic conditions that require ongoing management. Additionally, these centers help alleviate the workload of hospitals, allowing them to focus on critical cases.
Working with a Healthcare Planner and Architect for Project Success
When planning a community health center, early collaboration with a healthcare planner and/or architect is essential for project success. These professionals bring critical expertise to align design with healthcare delivery goals, patient experience, regulatory compliance, and long-term flexibility. In the early stages of planning and design, a healthcare planner and architect consider not just the building, but also its relationship to the community it serves. This includes evaluating the site for accessibility, visibility, transportation connections, and integration with other local services.
The healthcare design team will utilize client data, such as current patient needs and anticipated growth projections, to help develop a program. This program begins to establish special requirements, adjacencies, and circulation throughout the community health center.
A key decision is whether to repurpose an existing building or pursue new construction. Repurposing a building can offer cost savings and quicker occupancy, especially in urban or underserved areas with limited land availability. However, existing structures may present limitations in layout, structural systems, or compliance with healthcare codes—potentially increasing renovation costs and creating operational inefficiencies.
New construction allows for a fully customized design tailored to programmatic needs, future growth, and energy efficiency. It provides the opportunity to establish the health center as a community anchor—complete with amenity spaces for patients, staff, and caregivers. This could include well-being rooms, educational spaces, and staff support areas that may be difficult to retrofit into existing buildings.
Ultimately, a healthcare planner and architect help navigate these choices, balancing cost, schedule, patient outcomes, and community impact. Their early involvement ensures that the health center not only meets functional and regulatory standards, but also fosters an inclusive, healing environment.
Whether repurposed or newly built, a well-planned community health center becomes more than a medical facility—it becomes an accessible resource that strengthens community health and resilience. Community health centers help hospitals operate more efficiently while ensuring that patients receive timely, high-quality care where they live.
This article originally appeared in High Profile Monthly.
BOSTON – July 20, 2021 – Margulies Perruzzi (MP), one of New England’s most innovative architectural and interior design firms, has taken an active role working with health care clients to meet the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic and recently worked with Lahey Hospital & Medical Center (LHMC) in Burlington, Mass., to create a 3,100 SF COVID-19 testing lab.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals and providers across the Commonwealth worked in numerous capacities to respond to COVID-19, caring for thousands of patients, re-configuring care settings, and endlessly innovating to meet the rapidly changing demands of this pandemic. Throughout this time, hospitals needed to find new ways to meet the growing demands for COVID-19 testing and analysis and support the achievement of the Commonwealth’s goals to grow testing capacity in the state, which was critical to ensuring robust diagnostic testing and surveillance of the spread of the disease.
Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, a world-renowned tertiary medical center known for its innovative technology, pioneering medical treatment and leading-edge research, committed to more than doubling its existing COVID-19 testing capacity to meet the demand. The renovation of existing lab space created a new expanded COVID-19 testing lab with rapid throughput testing capabilities of up to 11,100 tests per day that would allow specimens to be resulted in 24 hours or less.
“To make a project like this happen requires an enormous amount of collaboration and alignment to ensure the entire team is working together to meet the project goals,” said Bob Humenn, AIA, director of healthcare strategy at Margulies Perruzzi. “The project team worked closely with LHMC to be sure the lab design would meet their current testing needs as well as future testing requirements.”
Margulies Perruzzi and Columbia Construction worked with LHMC to create a COVID-19 testing lab designed to accommodate new and larger equipment. The design/construction team was challenged to complete the COVID-19 testing lab as quickly as possible to meet the immediate needs for COVID-19 testing during the pandemic. Multiple sites on- and off-campus were explored, and it was determined that creating the COVID-19 testing lab within the main campus laboratory would have the greatest capital and operational cost efficiency. This approach could also be built in the shortest time because the mechanical infrastructure was already in place. The challenge with this option was restrictions on planning based on available space in the existing lab. Creating sufficient contiguous space needed for the Thermofisher testing equipment involved multiple moves of existing lab services and required renovation within an existing functioning laboratory. There were several strategies to accelerate the process, including team working sessions for material approvals and finishes flexibility to work with materials more readily available. Utilizing quick ship options for materials with unavoidably long lead times and using movable lab furniture to provide more flexibility for delivery, assembling and installation.
“LHMC moved quickly during the pandemic to meet the urgent demand for testing services. It was important that the lab could process a lot of tests quickly, but the space needed to be efficient and functional also. The design and construction teams helped us achieve our goals by taking a more proactive role to address issues immediately as they arose to ensure the new lab could open quickly for the benefit of our patients, colleagues and physicians,” said Michael Slejzer, director of planning, design and construction at LHMC.
Project team members include:
- Architect/Laboratory Planning: Margulies Perruzzi
- Construction Manager: Columbia Construction
- Owner’s Project Manager: Lehrer Cummings
- MEP/FP: BR+A
- Commissioning: CMTA
About Margulies Perruzzi
As one of New England’s top architectural and interior design firms, Margulies Perruzzi (MP) designs Workplace, Health, Science, and Real Estate projects that inspire and nurture human endeavor. More information may be found at https://mparchitectsboston.com.
Across the country, we are seeing numerous changes at healthcare facilities as they reopen for elective and non-critical care while still addressing potential surge capacity issues related to COVID-19. One of the biggest difficulties is getting into and through these facilities while practicing social distancing and minimizing risk to patients and staff.
MP’s John Fowler, AIA, EDAC, LEED AP, is featured in Healthcare Design – Healthcare facilities are employing a variety of strategies and tactics, including technology, to overcome the challenges of reopening amid COVID-19. Read more here: https://bit.ly/3iZms9r
