By Healthcare Facilities Today

In a recent blog, Healthcare Design magazine's senior editor Anne DiNardo writes about how the Ty Cobb Regional Medical Center in Lavonia, Ga., has become part of the community and how it's design honors it's namesake.

Cobb Memorial, which opened in 1950, got its name when Ty Cobb made a $100,000 donation for his hometown in northeastern Georgia to build a modern 24-bed hospital, the blog said.

Nearly 60 years later, owner Ty Cobb Health Care System (Royston, Ga.), a not-for-profit system, decided to replace Hart County Hospital and Cobb Memorial with a single new facility in Lavonia, Ga.

When it came time to design a fitting tribute to its namesake, Scott McFadden, vice president and director of design, Maregatti Interiors, Indianapolis, says the pressure was on to deliver a hit, DiNardo wrote.

“We wanted to make sure the facility didn’t have a big sports reference because it’s not a sports bar,” McFadden said.

The solution was a 30-foot-long-by-16-foot-wide digital wall graphic that incorporates images of the famous player from the Ty Cobb Museum and quotes that carry a healthcare-related theme: “I regret to this day that I never went to college. I feel I should have been a doctor.”

Read the blog.