HL20: Michael Graves—Patient Experience From the Patient's Experience

In our annual HealthLeaders 20, we profile individuals who are changing healthcare for the better. Some are longtime industry fixtures; others would clearly be considered outsiders. Some are revered; others would not win many popularity contests. All of them are playing a crucial role in making the healthcare industry better. This is the story of Michael Graves.

This profile was published in the December, 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

 "It is about design, but there's always a human being who is the client."

In 2003, celebrated architect and designer Michael Graves was suffering from what he and his doctor thought was a common sinus infection. Within 24 hours, Graves was paralyzed from the waist down. Though Graves still had the use of his hands, the life-altering change profoundly impacted him and his work. Just four years earlier, Graves was a National Medal of Arts recipient. In 1999, he also signed on as a partner with retailing giant Target, which launched him to the rare "starchitect" status. But, Graves' paralysis also meant there was a new set of discerning and design oriented eyes that would show the healthcare industry how to make products easier for patients, like him, to use.

"I was in eight hospitals and four rehab centers," Graves says. "It was like a bad dormitory. There was an old string to pull your light on, and it would break and you would have to call the nurse."

Moving around the numerous hospital and rehab rooms in a wheelchair revealed how simple tasks were disrupted because so much was out of reach, especially in and around the bathroom.

"The mirror was above your head—clearly meant for someone standing. You couldn't comb your hair or brush your teeth or shave because the faucets were out of reach" he says. "So, I determined that we would clear a place on our business plate and make room for healthcare along with our other endeavors."

Graves first ventured into medical product design with the Michael Graves Active Living Collection for a durable medical equipment manufacturer based in New York. Now, just like at Target, Graves' recognizable signature is on the company's heating pads, tub rails, shower seats, and a nifty bag cane—a height-adjustable cane that folds up into a bag with a shoulder strap.

From those small, personal health products, Graves has since moved on to bigger projects, including hospital room furniture. Stryker Medical is now selling a Michael Graves-designed suite that includes a chair, overbed, one over-the-bed table, and two different side tables.

"Working with Stryker is like working with family," says Graves. "They get it."

What Stryker "gets," says Graves, is that good product design is always person-, or in this case, patient-centric.

"Everything that we do is centered around the individual. … We imagine that person; many of them are going to be just fine, but there's going to be an occasional one who's arthritic or who is very elderly and can't do certain things, and we want to make those things active for them, not difficult, but gratifying. It is about design, but there's always a human being who is the client."

Graves tests out all new medical prototypes. Before he started designing Stryker's new overbed, he took one home.

"My nurse, who is small, 110 lbs., couldn't move it in the room. It was so big and bulky and had drawers, and mirrors and all kinds of cup holders. It had everything but overdrive, and we lightened the load," says Graves.

The new table is sleek and simple. The tabletop itself is oval and extends out from a single arm not unlike an island jutting out from the side of a palm tree.

"We divided the table into two parts—one part for your lunch, and another part for your personal items, your tissues, and so forth and so on. And we redesigned the huge handles so that the cleaning crew will clean those," he says.

While Graves says he seeks out healthcare projects, he still designs products and buildings. As head of his architectural firm, Michael Graves & Associates, and his product design firm, Michael Graves Design Group, he's still churning out blueprints. His latest designs include the Resorts World Sentosa, which includes the Hard Rock Hotel and Convention Centre in Singapore, and most recently, a project that tapped into his personal experience with illness, the Wounded Warrior Home. Built on Virginia's Fort Belvoir Army base, the two prototypes Graves designed meet the needs of soldiers who return from war disabled. For the physically disabled who use a wheelchair, their needs are like his—roomy halls and accommodating kitchens and bathrooms.

"These houses are terrific; they've got very wide corridors. In fact, two wheelchairs can pass each other in a corridor. You can turn around. You've got roll-in showers, tables that go up and down so that you can slide your wheelchair under the table," says Graves.

These wheelchair-accessible homes were not designed solely for physical disabilities. They're also meant to help heal the emotional scars of returning home from war. Graves says surroundings are crucial when learning to adjust to a new normal.

"There are so many things that lift the spirit in architecture," says Graves.

Indeed, the sense of playfulness that Graves is known for in his design shows up in both prototypes. One house is sunny yellow. A nearby white picket fence completes the picture-perfect exterior. The other house, red with white trim, has several small round windows and a wide front porch that is equally charming.

Graves says his dream is to design an entire hospital, rooms and all. With all that he's accomplished in healthcare product design after nearly 10 years as a patient, it wouldn't be surprising at all if one day his trademark slate blue markings are on a hospital door.