April 18, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by Interstate Office Products.

About one month after opening its addition, the new areas available for children and adolescents at Avera Behavioral Hospital are busy caring for their first patients.

The urgent care clinic, which opened at the end of March, has been incredibly busy, drawing dozens of patients daily.

And the adult and senior patients also are benefitting from the hospital’s increased capacity and intense attention to designing a place centered around safety and healing.

“This is a very unique setting,” said Thomas Otten, Avera’s assistant vice president for Avera Behavioral Health Services.

“And yet when you walk in, it’s a very modern look, and you don’t recognize you’re seeing furniture specially designed for a psychiatric hospital. It looks like something you could have in your living room.”

Achieving that look and feel is thanks to close collaboration with Interstate Office Products, which helped design and supply furniture for the original behavioral hospital and worked from the beginning with Avera on the four-story addition.

“One of the biggest pieces for us is safety,” Otten said. “And that means going with furniture one of two ways: either extremely heavy, so an upset patient can’t pick it up and throw it, or extremely light, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone but still be durable enough. And that safety piece is something IOP has always been cognizant of in helping us pick furniture.”

IOP account manager Reed Scott and interior designer Kaye Hansen worked with Avera on the project.

“The vision was to use some similar furniture from the main building because it had a good track record of longevity and function,” Scott said. “This can be a challenging environment for furniture.”

Product offerings have evolved considerably since the original hospital was built in 2006, Hansen added. Some of those pieces were added a few years ago after part of the hospital was struck by a tornado and had to be rebuilt.

“The newer products allow for a good mix of styles while still offering behavioral grade,” she said. “But you’ll see there’s variety, there’s lounge seating, and it’s nice because in many cases it’s universal furniture you can utilize in many different spaces.”

The overall design includes a mix of natural and cherry wood laminates in consult rooms and offices “to warm it up,” Scott said.

The color palette is “very nice, and it’s soft, which is intentional,” Otten said.

Patient room furnishings vary slightly based on ages, but all the furnishings have a modern look. Most rooms have a built-in desk, and IOP provided desk chairs.

“These are simple but functional rooms because you spend little time in there,” Scott said.

Instead, “there are group rooms, day rooms and dining rooms as the main communal spaces,” Hansen continued. “In the day rooms, we did a mix of tables and lounge seating, and the group rooms are more classroom-style with tables and seating.”

The expansion “looks really nice,” Scott said. “It’s spacious in the day areas and the group areas and doesn’t feel confining. It feels open, there’s good light coming in, and I think it’s going to work well for staff and patients.”

All furnishings were selected for their safety and durability, coming with 10-year warranties, which is a long time in a 24/7 behavioral health hospital, Avera and IOP said.

“So far, all is working as planned, and the staff love the new furniture, in part because of the safety functions,” Otten said.

“There’s nothing that creates a way for people to hurt themselves. It’s all extremely heavy, but patients love that it’s comfortable furniture. And it has a modern look and is easy to clean, so the furniture stands the test of time.”

As patients, families and other guests interact with the hospital, “you want to create spaces that are welcoming,” said Tom Clark, Avera’s chief strategy and growth officer.

“You don’t want them to feel sterile. You want them to feel warm and inviting and healing and nurturing. I was struck when I walked through the building, and all I could think of was if I or my loved ones needed this, what a blessing. It’s just so comfortable, warm, inviting, bright, airy. The environment won’t be the issue in their healing. We’ve taken that off the table, and I think that’s just remarkable.”

IOP also “hit a home run on the unique aspects for each patient population,” Otten said. “What our children need was very different than our senior population, and they hit it out of the park for both.”

For instance, Avera temporarily had relocated senior patients to Prince of Peace before the renovation and at that time had ordered a dozen rockers from IOP.

“And those are all still doing fantastic, but here we have 20 beds, and we discovered they were no longer made,” Otten said of the rockers.

“So IOP came out, took pictures and specified a custom order for more rockers so we could have the exact same ones because we like them so much. It’s a great example of how they work. They will problem solve with you until you get what you need for your environments.”

The overall process is team-oriented in every way, he added.

“Every time you deal with one of their staff members, they’re extremely friendly. There is an etiquette about the way they do business that is always with a handshake and a smile, so it’s fun,” he said.

“It’s fun to sit down with IOP and vision around what it will look like and then see it through. They check all the boxes and meet all the needs we have.”

Light the Way

Interstate Office Products and the Gaspar family have chosen to honor former CEO Gary Gaspar’s legacy by requesting donations to Avera’s Light the Way campaign. This successful fundraising effort contributed significantly to the construction of the Behavioral Health addition and will continue to fund programming, support patients accessing and navigating care, and even fund a clothing closet for those who arrive with little to no belongings.

Contributions can be directed to Avera Foundation’s Light the Way campaign online or at 3900 W. Avera Drive, Sioux Falls, SD 57108.