Have you noticed anything different on the first floor? If you look closely down the main hall, you will probably notice a blue light coming from the Imaging area. It’s one of the new wayfinding portals designed to help our patients and their families better find their way around the hospital.

First, you will notice the blue acrylic that’s backlit. The illuminated portal can be seen from both the north and south entrances. The lights will even dim at night and return to normal lighting in the morning. To the right on the door, is the department name in large letters. On the left side is a new directory that lists all the available services in the area. The showstopper of the portal is the beautiful image of a boy looking through a magnifying glass.

“The idea is once a person can self-navigate down to the portals, there will be secondary information within the department.,” says Mike Creason, Assistant Administrator of Facilities Management. “In many cases it will be a face-to-face conversation with one of our staff members, who will help orient them and help validate that they are in the right spot.”

Some of the department entrances are recessed into the hallway, so it’s easy for people to pass their destination. The goal of this project is to give patients a visual guide to find the main hubs in the hospital.

The project will also eliminate the many different signs throughout the hospital, giving it a more uniform look and getting rid of the clutter.

“We usually go into an area, do some construction and then have to replace the signs,” says Mike. “Unfortunately, when we update the signs, we didn’t follow the same style. We have lots of different looks. And many times the directions didn’t coincide.”

This new portal is the first of 26 going up throughout the hospital in the next several months. Others will include cardiology, oncology and the elevators. Each will have a different color and image surrounding the doors, but each will fit into the theme of discovery.

“This will not only impact a lot of our patients,” said Mike, “but also visitors and some of the physicians, associated with the University of Utah and Primary Children’s. We want to find the right balance to make it a much better experience for the patients when they come in for their care.”