How to build a world-class children's hospital – LIVE

About this episode

The episode discusses the innovative design and operational principles of the Mary Elizabeth Hospital, focusing on the role of play in enhancing the experience for young patients and their families.

What foundational ideas should guide our thinking around future approaches to care? In 2026, the Mary Elizabeth Hospital in Copenhagen will open to the public. It is a hospital that will revolutionise the experience for children, teens, pregnant women and their relatives before, during and after treatment. And they are doing this by centering the hospital all around play. Alongside Elisabeth Ida Ginsberg and Thomas Frandsen the hospital’s chief project manager and chief medical officer respectively, ReD’s Anne Mette Worsøe Lottrup and Iago Noguer Storgaard discussed how play became the foundational idea to both the hospital’s design principles and day-to-day operations. A project that has been over a decade in the making, they also discuss how an idea, or human insight such as play, can be guarded as the governing principle through something as complicated and large-scale as building a new hospital.

People in this episode

Guests: Elisabeth Ida Ginsberg, Thomas Frandsen

Topics covered

• children's hospital
• healthcare
• design principles
• play
• patient experience

Keywords

• hospital design
• child care
• future healthcare
• Copenhagen

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Copenhagen

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