David Vincent, AIA, has been named the director of HKS Team ED. The specialty practice provides healthcare clients with services concentrated on emergency department design including pre-design consulting, space programming, simulation modeling, operational and strategic planning and design.
Vincent, with 29 years of experience, has programmed, planned and designed many emergency departments throughout the country. His experience developing EDs – from community hospital renovations to academic medical center replacements – has enabled him to effectively and efficiently define the design-specific challenges unique to each project.
Through his work with Washington Hospital Center ER One, he developed vital experience in contingency planning and design for event-based medical consequences. Additionally, he has collaborated with national-level patient safety and human factors experts to develop advanced planning concepts that reflect the latest theories in patient safety planning.
“Clients know the emergency department is often their 24/7 front door,” said Vincent. “Over the last decade, ED visits are up 32 percent but capacity is down 7 percent. Universal care coverage will likely increase demand because of lack of primary care access. It is important that these spaces make the right statement about capability, efficiency, safety and satisfaction – for both patient and staff.”
Team ED understands a successful design requires more than just space planning and layouts. In addition to basic design services, Team ED offers space projection and analysis, and basic simulation modeling to determine if the configuration chosen will operate efficiently. The team also offers strategic and business planning consulting, advanced simulation modeling and technology consulting.
“Designing the ED of the future will require experience, innovation, adaptability and true partnership with clients,” said Vincent. “Our trans-disciplined, research-focused team integrates designers and engineers with operations and clinical practitioners. We have developed a depth of expertise internally as well as a network of preferred consultants including programmers and planners as well as ED operations analysts, simulation experts and ED technology specialists.”
