"We think a lot of our customers are willing to pay a little extra and get CORIAN®."

A flexible approach to caregiving:

Nurses' Station

A nurses' station is the nerve center of any hospital. Charting. Scheduling. Administration. Ordering tests. Making decisions that life itself may depend on. It all happens here, around the clock.

Today most nurses' stations are built-in millwork products. But because healthcare changes so frequently, Steelcase recognized a need for a more flexible approach. In the InterAct Modular System, freestanding core units in different shapes are linked together with a comprehensive system of storage units and accessories that can be added as needs change.

To endure the rigors of constant use and frequent use and frequent cleaning, Steelcase offers transaction surfaces of CORIAN^®. As Lois McCardell of Steelcase explains, "The transaction surface is a great place for CORIAN^®. It's an area that gets a lot of abuse-24 hours a day. And extensive testing showed us that laminate surfaces were vulnerable to that kind of abuse.

"I think the top two reasons why CORIAN^® works so well in a healthcare application are, one, the durability and, two, infection control. As a bonus you get really wonderful aesthetics.

"There is an upcharge from laminate to CORIAN^®, but you only have to buy it once. If you damage it, you can fix it. You don't have to replace it.

"We also found out that if you looked at it over the cost of the entire nurses' station, the upcharge for CORIAN^® was small...and we think a lot of our customers are willing to pay a little extra and get CORIAN^®."