A 21st century hospital

Although we are building a new patient tower in the 21st century, that’s not what we mean by the term “21st century hospital.” We mean a hospital that is flexible enough to help us provide top-quality healthcare to our community for the next 50 years and beyond.

Here are some attributes of a 21st century hospital that you will see in our new building.

Private, adaptable patient rooms. All patients will have individual rooms that offer more privacy and are large enough for family to visit. The rooms can also be changed to another type of service in the future. For example, a regular hospital room could change into an ICU room if we needed more ICU rooms.

Operating rooms become interventional suites. In a 21st century hospital, operating rooms are merged with interventional services that involve imaging. As the medical field develops more procedures that join imaging and some type of invasive technique, such as the placement of cardiac stents, operating rooms of the future will continue to evolve. Similar to adaptable patient rooms, these interventional suites will help us grow and change as these procedures evolve over time.

Information technology plays a vital role. Technology in hospitals is more than medical equipment. It’s also the computers we use every day to manage patient care. Computer use can reduce errors and improve communication when patient notes are typed instead of handwritten. And using bar codes to track important information has been shown to reduce errors by 21 percent over handwritten methods.

Technology can help make patients safer, improve clinical processes, and more.

Environmentally responsible healing environments. We’re using “green” building practices to create a hospital that is healthy for people and the environment.

While it can cost more at the outset, this approach can ultimately reduce costs to the hospital and patients, and help patients heal faster.

By choosing building materials that are free of hazardous chemicals, we can improve indoor air quality and protect the health of patients and staff.

Beyond construction, a 21st century hospital incorporates green practices into its everyday operations, such as housekeeping and landscaping protocols, and even maintenance of the facility and how we use water.

Evidence-based design throughout. A new field of research tells us which elements can help patients heal and help keep our staff healthy. We’re incorporating these elements into our new building (see page 4 to learn more about this).