Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center

LEO A DALY designed a landmark Ambulatory Care Center on the campus of the Omaha VA Medical Center. The facility will provide much-needed services, greatly benefitting veterans in the Omaha area.

The project was partially funded by a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership. The 114th Congress passed the “CHIP IN for Vets Act” in 2016, which authorizes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out a pilot program under which it may accept donations from non-federal entities to construct a project on VA property.

We were selected by the private entity because of our long history of providing high-quality design and consulting services for the VA, dating to the 1950s.

Patient-focused layout

Our design features the VA’s Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) prototype model and includes eight primary care PACT units, one specifically dedicated to women’s healthcare. There is also a specialty care unit and an ambulatory surgery suite.

The building has 157,000 departmental gross square feet allocated in a three-level structure. A connector link to the existing hospital building will separate public-patient traffic patterns from the required service traffic for the new building.

The facility’s design promotes patient-centered environments throughout to focus on the relationship between the physical environment and the patients’ overall experience. The design creates a healing environment that integrates spaces of escape and refuge, positive distractions, access to views and nature and abundance of natural daylight. Outside, patients and visitors can take time for reflection in a new healing garden.

Symbols of freedom, sacrifice, honor and duty

Our design of the Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center draws on patriotic iconography to honor veterans. For example, the primary facade expresses the form of an American flag rippling in the wind. It combines sophisticated structural design with aesthetic composition to depict freedom. The western façade conveys honor using glass panes of different hues that evoke the ribbons awarded to service members.

Selective limestone walls perform the duty of separating public spaces from secure clinical areas. The wall’s physical strength embodies security, while the limestone’s sedimentary layers reference periods of peace and conflict through which veterans have served. The stony composition reflects foreign soil tracked home.