Women in Design 2018 - 18

18

Memorial Sloan Kettering, Montvale, New Jersey

Suzen Heeley

Executive Director, Design and Construction
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York

After school as a teenager and during breaks from classes at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Suzen Heeley worked
at William Sklaroff Design Associates, a multidisciplinary design
firm outside Philadelphia. Upon graduating, she remained with
the company until 1991, getting a second education in healthcare,
wayfinding, and the design of furniture and medical devices.
"I wasn't singly focused on interior design, but I looked at the
big picture. To have a holistic view of design in a healthcare
environment was helpful," she recalls.
A brief stint at Mitchell Associates in Wilmington, Delaware,
led to a position at New Jersey-based Hackensack University
Medical Center in 1994, where she ended up staying for 16
years. As director of design and construction, Heeley tripled the
hospital's physical size and introduced a new paradigm of fostering
"initiatives that improve patient experience," she says. Here,
fashion designer Nicole Miller dreamed up hospital gowns, RitzCarlton hotel chefs upgraded the food, and a day spa offered
bedside services.

For the last seven years, Heeley has applied this visionary
spirit to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New
York, where she is now the executive director of design and
construction, responsible for a $2 billion capital program for more
than 30 locations in the tristate area. Consider the soothing hotel
lobby-like waiting area of the Josie Robertson Surgery Center
(JRSC), designed by local firms Perkins Eastman and ICRAVE
in collaboration with her in-house team. Instead of a traditional
check-in desk, guests are greeted at an open beehive-shaped kiosk
with light fixtures as focal points. "Patients get off the elevator,
briefly check in at the Beehive, and sit wherever they choose, then
staff comes over and pulls up an ottoman for a personalized face-toface check in," she explains.
Along with seeking out designers from beyond the healthcare
sphere, Heeley also looks to other industries for inspiration. The
availability of amenities like food and retail at airport gates, for
instance, influenced the device given to patients at JRSC so they
can safely roam the facility, their steps monitored, without being
tethered to one room. Similar to airport concerns of missed flights,
waiting rooms often espouse "anxiety and a fear that the patient
will be forgotten," so this technology helps reinforce humanity as
the centerpiece of healthcare.
"We bring such a high level of quality care clinically, so the
environments also need to reach that level," says Heeley. "When
you understand what families are going through, the design is so
intergral to their experience. To be involved in crafting that is quite
humbling."



Women in Design 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Women in Design 2018

Contents
Women in Design 2018 - Intro
Women in Design 2018 - Cover1
Women in Design 2018 - Cover2
Women in Design 2018 - Contents
Women in Design 2018 - 2
Women in Design 2018 - 3
Women in Design 2018 - 4
Women in Design 2018 - 5
Women in Design 2018 - 6
Women in Design 2018 - 7
Women in Design 2018 - 8
Women in Design 2018 - 9
Women in Design 2018 - 10
Women in Design 2018 - 11
Women in Design 2018 - 12
Women in Design 2018 - 13
Women in Design 2018 - 14
Women in Design 2018 - 15
Women in Design 2018 - 16
Women in Design 2018 - 17
Women in Design 2018 - 18
Women in Design 2018 - 19
Women in Design 2018 - 20
Women in Design 2018 - 21
Women in Design 2018 - 22
Women in Design 2018 - 23
Women in Design 2018 - 24
Women in Design 2018 - 25
Women in Design 2018 - 26
Women in Design 2018 - 27
Women in Design 2018 - 28
Women in Design 2018 - 29
Women in Design 2018 - 30
Women in Design 2018 - 31
Women in Design 2018 - 32
Women in Design 2018 - Cover3
Women in Design 2018 - Cover4
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