Asante Three Rivers

Supporting Patient Outcomes With Easy to Maintain, Durable Rubber Flooring

Asante Three Rivers Critical Care Unit, established in 2001, is one of three Asante hospitals in Oregon. The facility, in Grants Pass, OR, recently underwent a complete renovation of its third floor, which included everything from handrails to flooring. 

For this substantial project, consisting of 50 patient rooms, corresponding corridors and nurse stations, Asante selected nora premium rubber flooring to improve patient and caregiver experience, reduce maintenance costs, and improve flooring longevity.

Creating Positive Spaces for Patients and Caregivers with nora

“I had toured hospitals in Portland and Bend and became a fan of nora,” said Dennis Hayes, Real Estate Project Manager at Asante Three Rivers. “The nora sales staff held my hand and led me around the country and showed me nice installs, the cleaning process, and that it’s a green product. As a LEED-certified professional, being able to take the chemicals out of the cleaning conversations made me start liking it. I started sharing those conversations with executive team members throughout Asante, not just Three Rivers.”

“I have sold nora everywhere, and I’m not a salesperson,” Hayes said. “I just know what’s best, especially when I hear a lot of things going right. I think this is good for us as an organization, and you have to push that forward.”

As a frequent user of nora products, the Asante team is well-accustomed to the cleaning and maintenance benefits associated with premium rubber flooring. “We now have EVS [Environmental Services] staff in three different hospitals that just love the cleaning process, and they get it,” Hayes said.

Using A Seamless Flooring System To Improve Maintenance Efficiencies

Before selecting norament^® satura for their third floor renovation, Asante Three Rivers installed nora^® nTx on its first floor to address moisture concerns and improve durability. 

For this most recent renovation, they opted to utilize rubber flooring for the entirety of the project.

“Having the seamless look is huge,” said Adam Mayle, Environmental Services Operations Supervisor at Asante. “And, maintenance is so much easier because you don’t have to use wax, like some surfaces. When cleaning the rooms or mopping after a discharge, it’s not nearly as slick as the old flooring. And, it feels softer on your feet.” 

“From a clean health perspective, it can’t get any better,” Mayle said. “From an overall vision of looking at it, its ‘Wow!’. Everything sparkles, the light shines off the floor. That’s the first thing people see when they come in the hospital, the flooring.”

Creating positive patient outcomes is always the goal of healthcare spaces. The environment should provide patients with quiet, hygienic surroundings, eliminate the need for chemicals and support quick turn over needs. 

For Asante, these goals meant ensuring the renovations were completed before flu season. But, despite these concerns, Asante completed the project early.

“We were able to cut off almost four weeks of scheduled time for the flooring,” Mayle said. “Our big thing is flu season because when the flu really hits, we really need those rooms. Being able to cut off that down time was a big deal.”

Improving Patient Experience and Safety with Color

Beyond maintenance and longevity, Asante chose nora rubber flooring because of its color offerings.

“Color selection is a big thing,” Hayes said. “We needed to find something that’s not too dark that you feel like you’re in a cave, but not so light that every little hiccup shows.”

Asante also used color to create wayfinding elements for dementia patients experiencing symptoms of delirium such as reduced awareness, impaired thinking and emotional disturbances. Using a lighter color flooring in the hallway and a contrasting color for patient rooms helps guests better identify spaces within Three Rivers. Asante chose to ease their patient experience and increase safety by integrating wayfinding in the space. 

The colored flooring also aids physical therapists and nurses working to gauge or improve patient mobility.

“We marked the flooring with different colored circles to help nurses tell how many feet patients could walk to help us document better,” said Paula Tessen, Director of Nursing for Inpatient Services at Asante. “They are 25 feet apart so that physical therapists or the nurses can walk their patients and know how far they were able to walk.”