Penn Medicine

team

Andrew Lewis

Phillip Luu

Bobbi Maniaci

Lia Margolis

David Kimzey

Charles Jia

Project Overview

Prototyping a more flexible, high-performance, value-driven approach to the healthcare workplace, Penn Medicine is opening the first location of its “Workplace of the Future” on two floors of 150 Monument Road in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb not far from the main hospital.

A new standard for the Penn Medicine system, the workplace draws on trends in coworking and remote work to decant non-clinical staff and free up hospital space for revenue-generating healthcare services. The majority of the floor area is unallocated, dedicated to open workstations, conference rooms of various sizes, and informal social and collaborative spaces. Using scheduling software, staff can reserve the space that best suits the work they need to accomplish that day.

Some staff will still be assigned private offices, but at only 60 square feet (6’x10’), they are designed for private, focused work. Moreover, private offices are located away from the exterior wall, so staff in the open workstations — those who typically spend more of their day in the office — enjoy a healthier, more uplifting work environment with improved daylight and views.

The open work area is designed for maximum flexibility: workstations can be added without removing walls, thanks to the use of furniture to partition space where possible, and to the electrical and internet cables descending from a ceiling-mounted system.

150 Monument Road will serve as a prototype to reorient Penn Medicine’s workplace strategy around a hub-and-spoke model that better supports remote work. Much like ambulatory care — where the most intensive treatments occur at the main campus, and less-acute care is distributed into smaller facilities located in the communities where patients live — Penn Medicine anticipates locating several workplaces throughout the metropolitan area, so employees can conveniently visit the office whenever they need to meet in person, print a document, or simply enjoy a change of scenery.