When Mariella Marfori, a graduate student at the University of Florida College of Nursing, was invited to join a team tasked with designing a health care facility from the ground up for the 2025 PDC Summit Student Design Challenge, she felt both intrigued and uncertain.
She wondered what a nurse and Doctor of Nursing Practice student, full of clinical experience, could contribute to a team of architects and engineers designing a building. As it turned out — a lot.
Marfori’s contributions helped produce the winning design at the recent summit in Atlanta. Her focus centered on patient flow, staff needs and budget constraints. Marfori emphasized the importance of positioning the nurses’ station at the center of the unit, allowing staff to efficiently monitor and respond to patient needs. She also suggested redesigning areas to improve traffic flow and reduce potential barriers. She kept a keen eye on the design’s functionality for health care professionals and patients.
“It really opened my eyes to how nurses can impact not just patient care, but also the way health care spaces are built and function,” she said. “I’m glad I challenged myself to do something outside of clinical work because if I hadn’t, I would have never been exposed to health care design.”
Marfori was one of four UF graduate students selected to participate in the challenge. Lisa Gawronski Johnson, Keliy Fordham and Mendy Dunn, all PhD students, also made the trip to Atlanta. They joined students from Ball State University, Drexel University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University to form interdisciplinary teams that included students studying architecture, engineering, construction management and nursing.
They had 48 hours to design the planned expansion of the Behavioral Health Emergency Department at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. But thanks to daylight saving time kicking in that weekend, they had just 47 hours.
“They used every bit of that time. Students were drawing and writing notes, taking pictures and asking questions. By the last day, they were spent,” said UF Nursing Associate Professor and Dorothy M. Smith Endowed Chair Jane Carrington, PhD, RN, FAAN, FAMIA, who accompanied the students to the summit.
The UF’s team’s participation in the challenge was coordinated through the Florida Blue Center for Health Care Quality, of which Carrington is the director.
But the work started months earlier, with the four UF students receiving guidance from Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design President-Elect Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, MS-CRM, RN, an assistant professor at Montana State University, where she teaches the design of health care delivery systems.
“The importance of this challenge cannot be overstated — I was a participant in 2019, and it changed my career trajectory across research, teaching and service to empower nurses to include this facet of our role and identity into their career opportunities,” Johnson said. “The health care industry needs clinical voices to improve the quality of design in its relationship to care outcomes.”
Manfori’s experience also opened her eyes to the possibilities.
“It was unlike any other experience I’ve had in clinical work, and it made me realize there are so many paths in nursing beyond the bedside,” she said.