E4H and Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital have been working together for a decade and a half. In that time, E4H’s evidence-based approach to elevating patient and staff experience has earned us the distinction of being the preferred architect of record across six facilities for one of the most distinguished cardiac care institutions in the world.
But the shining example of our collaborative achievement may be Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano. Throughout the years, the facility has been repeatedly recognized by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). Most recently, in 2024, it received three stars in all five STS cardiac surgery categories—a testament to how design can support the highest standards of cardiac care excellence.
STS three-star ratings are the gold standard for cardiac surgery quality. They reflect superior survival and complication outcomes, consistent clinical processes, and high-functioning multidisciplinary teams. The distinction places Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano among the top 1% across the U.S. and Canada for facilities that deliver the highest quality of cardiac surgery.
“Usually, if a facility has one or two STS three-star ratings, that would be impressive, but to have five?” said E4H Senior Principal Joy Bartolotta. “Those ratings are based on the whole experience, from the time you walk in the front door until you check out.”
Crucially, facilities that achieve these ratings rely on purpose-built environments that reduce friction, support teamwork, and enable advanced procedures, which is where E4H’s services come in. More than aesthetic, we believe design is a performance tool—a conviction embodied in all aspects of the Plano facility’s design, from patient experience to clinical efficiency.
A Patient Experience Above and Beyond
Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano is known for patient experience, which is no coincidence.
“Everyone I hear from who comes in for the first time, they think this is not like any other hospital they’ve been in,” said Brad Morgan, the facility’s VP Chief Operating Officer, “and that’s by design.”
To prepare for the facility’s north tower expansion, E4H and client leadership didn’t just tour hospitals. They toured luxury Dallas hotels to understand their guest experience and hospitality standards, with the intent of integrating high-end arrival sequence and guest relations elements into the updated Plano facility’s design.
“When people are most vulnerable, when they’re coming to the hospital with their loved ones, Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital wants them to feel welcome,” said E4H Associate Principal Julie Martinez, “and that’s all about how they feel in the space.”
Many conversations on those hotel tours revolved around that topic, and one of the key elements had to do with guests’ first impressions.
“Many guests and visitors are arriving at the facility for the first time and could be feeling a higher level of anxiety. We want to do everything we can to ease any concerns—who do they need to talk to? Where are they going? What happens next? They have questions and we want to provide clear visual information and wayfinding,” said Martinez.
To that end, the lobby acts as an intuitive hub that connects patients, families, and visitors to the building’s departments. The path to every destination is clear from the entrance, from the elevators that lead up to treatment centers, to the education center, to the hospital’s high-end dining experience, the Heart Rock Café.
The lobby is also a destination that, more than a reception area, feels like a lounge. Before a monumental staircase, a concierge desk greets visitors. There’s a fireplace, high-end wood finishes, sparkling terrazzo flooring, large-scale modern chandeliers, and soft swivel chairs that sit before a two-story glazed front façade, filling the space with natural light. Whether visitors need to remain in the lobby for five minutes or half an hour before moving to their next destination, the design ensures they feel comfortable.
"When people are most vulnerable, when they're coming to the hospital with their loved ones, Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital wants them to feel welcome, and that's all about how they feel in the space."
– Julie Martinez, Associate Principal, E4H
Clinical Efficiency
Essential to the Plano facility’s superior survival and complication outcomes is the efficiency of its clinical environment, which has a direct connection to E4H’s work.
“STS three-star ratings speak to how the rooms are designed, how the ORs are designed, how the equipment and the rooms are laid out, so they lend themselves to high-quality surgery,” said Morgan.
In addition to efficiencies at the room level, we’ve also fine-tuned the master planning of departments. While renovating the existing surgery suite on the second floor, for example, we reconfigured the layout, creating one path of circulation around all procedure spaces to provide universal access to a central sterile core.
In this configuration, staff never have to cross a corridor or leave the sterile environment to administer care. Every operating room has a back door to the sterile core, which contains all necessary supplies for procedures on the floor.
Wherever we can, across all the client’s facilities, we implement this layout on every floor—not only for operating rooms, but also for other procedure and diagnostic spaces, such as cardiac catheterization labs and electrophysiology labs.
“It’s that attention to detail that makes it easier to work,” said Morgan.
E4H worked with staff to tailor departments to clinical workflow, implementing efficiences at the room level and also fine-tuning the master planning of departments.
Ease in Repeated Collaboration
Repeated collaboration is the secret ingredient to many of E4H’s innovations at these cardiac care facilities. Thanks to our alignment with clinical leadership, we consistently reach exceptional design solutions faster.
“E4H is really good about thinking about process flow and patient flow and incorporating that into how the rooms are laid out,” said Morgan. “It’s our bedside staff that comes in and participates in those meetings because they want to walk through the experience of care.”
“We have a comfort with each other,” said E4H Principal Phillip Waters. “They know that we’ll help them solve whatever problem they come to us with.”
Case in point: during the design of the north tower expansion at Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano, we were adding four operating rooms and a new central sterile, which we had arranged based on constraints imposed by existing structural elements. But during signoff, it became clear that the physicians needed a different layout.
For many teams, inevitable moments like these cause expensive design delays—but not for E4H. Thanks to the shorthand we’ve developed with the clinical team, and the level of comfort we have when exchanging ideas and voicing opinions, within a day, Waters was able to redesign the entire department to meet clinical needs, and present the new plan to the physician group.
“I love the complexity of healthcare and how you can blend all these constraints and turn them into something beautiful, and to be able to see and know that your building is being used to save people’s lives,” Waters said.
The longer our partnership lasts, the more efficient the design process becomes. Waters makes revisions and creates new options during meetings, drawing on previous work and incorporating feedback in real-time.
“Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital has great people, they all love being there, and they all believe in the mission,” he said.
"I love the complexity of healthcare and how you can blend all these constraints and turn them into something beautiful, and to be able to see and know that your building is being used to save people's lives."
– Phillip Waters, Principal, E4H
Pride in Education
As a participant in national and international cardiac seminars and conferences, Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital is a strong advocate for cardiac education—and the high design of their Plano location’s auditorium, equipped with leading-edge technology, also empowers them to be disseminators of cardiac learning.
“People thought we were nuts when we built this 250-seat auditorium, but it’s not big enough now,” said Morgan.
The auditorium is equipped with high technology and replete with acoustical wood finishes, warm lighting, and a lecture podium upon a stage that faces tiered, amphitheater-style seating. Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital can livestream procedures from the OR into this space, and also broadcast them internationally, allowing physicians around the world to participate in discussions and seminars.
“We livestream to people in the auditorium, but also to an audience in Leipzig, Germany. The same thing happens when the event is hosted over there: We have a huge crowd here watching what’s going on in Leipzig,” said Morgan.
Across the hall from the auditorium, two large education rooms are styled like conference rooms, and adjacent to these is a bio skills lab for teaching. Here, hands-on teaching and learning with cadavers, torsos, and hearts happens right inside the facility.
As the crown jewel of the facility, the auditorium’s exterior design is distinct. It’s a series of interlocking forms that fan away from the north tower, with glazing framed by metal paneling that’s finished with a deep red multilayered coating that changes in the sunlight. The distinguished design is fitting, given the distinguished learning and research that takes place inside.
Toward Continuous Innovation
Two of the biggest projects happening right now for Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital are new advanced imaging departments. From TEE to stress echo rooms, we design spaces that help physicians identify conditions sooner, freeing up PACU bays and inpatient rooms throughout the facility, so more patients can receive care faster.
As E4H looks toward completing renovations, replacements, ambulatory surgery centers, and ground-up cardiac care projects for the client in places like Frisco, Denton, and Dallas, Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital continues to find non-invasive ways to treat and diagnose patients.
“We trust E4H to do our work,” said Morgan. “That’s why we work with them. It’s why they’re designing our brand new Frisco hospital, and why they’ll be designing our new hospitals when we build them. They know what we like, they know our goals and what we’re trying to accomplish, with the look and feel, and we trust that they’ll get it right.”
“Usually, if a facility has one or two STS three-star ratings, that would be impressive, but to have five? Those ratings are based on the whole experience, from the time you walk in the front door until you check out.”
– Joy Bartolotta, Senior Principal, E4H
