Case Study Holy Spirit Hospital

At Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, a new heart center recently opened to provide an impressive array of services to the region’s cardiac patients. The emergency room is the portal to this beacon of hope and healing. The new floor in the ER? Armstrong Excelon Stonetex. In fact, for years, Holy Spirit has relied on Stonetex to help create a healing environment in many other areas of the health system.

The Ortenzio Heart Center at Holy Spirit was built next to the main hospital and is connected by an atrium. The four-story heart center is fast earning a reputation for delivering state-of-the-art cardiac services, lead by top-notch cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons. The center’s diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical and special treatment services were thoughtfully designed with patients and their families in mind. When the facility broke ground in 2001, architecture and design firm Robert D. Lynn Associates (RDLA) in Philadelphia was already working on designs to match the hospital’s vision statement: “Creating an environment of healing.” The firm, which specializes in health care design, knew the flooring would need to balance aesthetics with functional performance. Their interior designer had a positive experience specifying Stonetex, as did Holy Spirit. RDLA designer Kristine Schilling says, “The client was familiar with Stonetex from other hospital spaces and liked the floor’s texture. They wanted to use this vinyl composition tile (VCT) in the new facility too, for design as well as for economics.” Stonetex conveys an upscale appearance with stonelike accents for an architectural look. At the same time, it offers the value that all Excelon VCT products provide.

Stonetex is ideal for emergency rooms, public and administrative areas, offices, diagnostic departments, maintenance areas and storage rooms. The product is a cornerstone of the Armstrong MEDS™ program, offering flooring products with distinctive features and benefits appropriate for specific health care spaces. The MEDS commitment to finding the right medical solution goes far beyond product. Award-winning customer service and excellent technical support helps customers solve their health care design challenges.

RDLA envisioned patient rooms, nurses stations and corridors displaying the monolithic appearance of Stonetex. “The solid colors and non-directional pattern facilitated our floor design ideas. We proposed a floor design characterized by multiple, bold geometric Ten colors in Stonetex are used in a series of square-onsquare and diamond-on-diamond designs,” Schilling says. The geometrics break up large expanses of floor areas into more pleasing, smaller spaces. Neutral and accent colors work together in harmony to achieve the desired effect. “The checkerboard background with accents takes the institutional look out of this clinical space, which is so important to patients and family undergoing cardiac procedures. The pleasant surroundings also help staff morale,” says Schilling. She explains another benefit of the design motif, “The designs are installed on an angle to the corridor walls and fixtures, which helps hide any subfloor and wall irregularities.”

With proper maintenance, the new Stonetex flooring is expected to stay new looking for years. Schilling jokes, “These floors will last for an eternity.” The floors are meeting all the hospital’s expectations, including a design that is comforting to patients, performance that meets durability and maintenance needs, and VCT economics that fits in with the health care system’s budget. It will come as no surprise to Robert D. Lynn Associates if Holy Spirit requests Stonetex® for the flooring as the hospital continues its expansion plans.