EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN

Dwaine & Cynthia Willett Childrens Hospital of Savannah

Identity creation for $66M, 90,000 square foot acquisition project, including but not limited to, brand suite, facility and experiential design

Dwaine & Cynthia Willett Children’s Hospital of Savannah 30 second video, Winner of 2022 Silver Telly Award, General – Local TV

Concepts

Numerous concept presentations were conducted with various leadership audiences for a myriad of projects including but not limited to budget, signage, landscaping and lighting. After aggregating approvals, assessing scope, accounting for contingencies (which served to be extremely helpful in the face of COVID-19), appointing service level ownership and agreeing upon a decision hierarchy, plans were approved and design commenced in a phased approach. Complimentary to the various phases of the design plans, additional phases also accounted for collaboration with community engagement, facility and division marketing, government affairs, nursing, physician leadership and hospital administration for execution of creative deliverables needed to advertise and operationalize the new facility’s services.

Mockups

Throughout each phase, mockups were rendered for each category of experiential, architectural and creative deliverable designs. Contingency plans were executed when faced with the global pandemic, continuing business as usual virtually and limiting site visits to be attended only by those listed highest in the decision hierarchy. Delays in construction were accounted for and timelines were adjusted and communicated to all working teams and priority stakeholders. Final options were tested and ultimately approved for execution.

Application

Navigating a global pandemic and an influx of patients from more than 36 counties, the community embraced the new facility with open arms. ACNO, Heather Newsome summed up the project beautifully by saying, “Somehow we managed to open up this facility in the height of COVID and when you think about resilience and persistence this is the quintessential picture of that right there. The fact that we have been able to be in our community and help all these children, which is what we set out to do, is nothing short of amazing. Prior to opening this facility, we saw about 15,000 kids through our emergency department in the main facility. This past year we saw 45,000 kids through the emergency department. What we have recognized is that the need is there, it was always here…

The building just brought it to life more than we expected originally.”

The team.

Creative Director: Lisa Garcia
Project Leads: VP of Marketing, Julie Tyre and Assistant Chief Nursing Officer, Heather Newsome
Key Stakeholders: Division President and CFO, Hospital Administration team including CEO and CFO, Physician Leadership team, Corporate Compliance, SVP of Strategy, VP of Marketing
Special Thanks: To Adam, our fearless leader who advocated for what we needed and trusted us to make him look good. Thank you for hiring talented people and then getting out of the way.

Personal achievement: Three things: $66M, 90,000 square feet and COVID-19.
Personal learnings: Have fun. No matter how high the stakes are or how unpredictable the challenges are, mountains are minimized to molehills when you’re surrounded by people who take their work, and not themselves, so seriously.