Nurture | Dealer Dose

Rockingham Memorial A True Team Effort

Rockingham Memorial Hospital, located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, serves a seven county area with a population of nearly 200,000. With an increasing population and an outdated facility, RMH undertook the task of building a replacement hospital. Their goal was to create a LEED certified hospital with 238 beds that would be able to meet the growing demands of their community. Rockingham Memorial has been a long time customer of Pifer Office. Joyce Erbaugh, the account rep from Pifer, contacted her Steelcase rep, Vanessa Derks, about this replacement hospital and set the wheels in motion. Vanessa coordinated a local team that included John Horn, Nurture Area Manager, Joanne Norman from Coalesse, and Bob Betke from Steelcase as well as other resources to make sure everything was in position to supply Rockingham Memorial with all they needed to achieve their goals.

In an effort to introduce key decision makers at Rockingham Memorial to all Nurture had to offer, the whole team took a corporate visit to Grand Rapids. The trip brought all facets of the project together including nurse managers, information technology, project management, purchasing, and materials management. Once there, they were able to learn the insights and research used by Nurture to develop innovative solutions. On the trip, it was announced that a second phase of this project would include a cancer center; the RMH team was excited about the prospect of Sonata and all of its innovations for this new space. They toured Metro Health and saw many of the solutions in use and came away with the understanding that Nurture and Steelcase were the right partners to help them achieve their goals.

Another valuable member of the team was Cameron Stiles, the principal with KSA Interiors, the A&D firm working on the project. Cameron and her team worked closely with the Steelcase group to design both clinical and administrative spaces that met the design intention that Rockingham Memorial desired. As the project grew in scope, Pifer Office partnered with Creative, a second dealer in Virginia to manage the project through the final installation. Karen Frebert from Creative and Joyce Erbaugh from Pifer worked closely to make sure nothing fell through the cracks.

Ultimately, the project resulted in sales of nearly $2 million and approximately 30 product lines among all Steelcase brands including Opus, Sonata, Cura, X-tenz, Verge and other Nurture products. The hospital's grand opening was in June 2010 and the cancer center opened later that summer achieving LEED Gold Certification and providing a state of the art facility for the community they support.