By Howard Greninger
TERRE HAUTE — After more than two years, construction on the new 500,000-square-foot, $185 million Union Hospital East is complete and a “community celebration” to view the new facility is slated for Dec. 13.
It’s center architectural piece is a large, slanted-glass atrium, spanning from the ground to the top level, creating a spacious public area. The entire hospital contains 53,000 square feet of glass.
“Part of the design and functionality is to create some circulation space for family and visitors to feel comfortable and try to keep them out of the patient area unless they are visiting people,” David Doerr, Union president and chief executive officer, said earlier this week while walking through the new facility.
“The glass on the atrium is inclined at such an angle that it is supposed to maximize or minimize the intensity of the sun, depending on the time of the year and where the sun is in the sky,” Doerr said.
“We sought to design and build a building that is attractive, aesthetically pleasing, but not an overdone facility. I think we got close to that,” Doerr said.
The East building, with 236 private-room beds, brings Union Hospital’s total bed count to 380. The building is fronted by a new 220-space parking lot, leading to the center atrium.
The interior, with new technology systems, may be among the building’s greatest assets.
Carol Roesch, vice president of patient care services, said the new facility gives staff more systems to make their job easier and safer for the patient. One example is the “vocera,” a small, hands-free phone, worn around the neck, that allows a nurse “to call for another nurse, or to another department inside the buildings. We can also call labs for a result.”
Also, “smart pumps” dispense medication and “if someone tries to speed it up or hang the wrong [medication dosage] bag,” it will alert caregivers, Roesch said. The pumps are used in conjunction with a bar coding on medical bracelets meant to track medications to patients.
Reducing
documentation time
Touchscreen monitors are in each room “so that documenting is at the fingertips of the nurses inside the patient’s room. Also, alerts and reminders are built in to tell the nurse, for example, when it is time to do a treatment or a procedure such as reposition a patient in bed,” Roesch said.
The touchscreen system is to reduce documentation time by 50 percent, giving nurses more time for patient care.
“The nurse does not have to write something down on a piece of paper or go back to a nurse station. Also, we will use smart beds, which are hooked in with the nurse call system. It also weights the patient,” Roesch said of the bed.
In addition, TV monitors in each room allows patients to set the room temperature and can record the patient’s personal preference in the event of a future visit. A patient also can order food service or use the Internet. The monitors also provide patient educational information.
All the rooms are private. Each room also has a video camera, helpful for patients whose condition needs to be closely watched, Roesch said. The majority of the time, the cameras will be turned off and an alert will sound when the camera is about to be turned on, giving a patient time to cover themselves, if needed.
A light outside each patient room is designed to flash a different color as a visual aid for assistance.
“The lights are color-coded for different needs, such as a nurse is in the room and needs help, it flashes one color. If a doctor is in the room and needs a nurse, it flashes a different color,” Roesch said.
The hospital’s emergency room expands by 11 beds, from 28 beds to 39 beds. The ER also has three trauma rooms, which are connected to allow physicians to treat multiple victims, such as from a traffic accident. Physicians also have a 360-degree access to patients.
Doer said the ER visits have risen from about 16,000 annually when he started at Union Hospital in 1979 to more than 50,000 visits a year currently. The ER is also set up with most critical care patients easily visible from nursing stations, with less critical patients in rooms behind those.
Union Hospital last year had 392,739 hospital visits. Its emergency room had 50,846 visits, according to the Union Hospital Health Group 2008 annual report.
Helipad allows
safer approach
The hospital’s roof supports an elevated helipad, with a heated ramp. The helipad makes it safer for patients, Doerr said, as medical transport helicopter pilots do not have to steer around power lines or trees.
The lower level of the hospital contains a larger cafeteria, including pizza ovens, along with a larger gift shop and chapel, which has stained glass windows. The lower level also will display time capsule items from previous renovations along with other items such as a cornerstone from one of the hospital buildings from June 26, 1908.
Photographs throughout the new building have themes for each floor, ranging from flowers, woodlands and local architecture to photographs of water.
Patients now in Union Hospital West will be moved into the new east building on Jan. 12. It’s a move that has been nearly a year in the planning, Roesch said. She led a team that visited Reid Hospital in Richmond, which moved to a new facility 21/2 miles away.
“We really learned a lot from them, and we have modeled a lot of our patient move after them. We have a huge advantage as we don’t have to move 21/2 miles, as our buildings are connected.”
After the patient move, work will start on renovation of 104,000 square feet in the existing west building.
The community celebration is from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 13, with a ribbon-cutting and building dedication at 1:30 p.m. A final dusting and sterilization of the east building will be done after that public viewing, Doerr said.
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com
Check it out
• Union Hospital is hosting a “community celebration” of the opening of its new Union Hospital East building from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 13.
• A ribbon-cutting and building dedication will be conducted at 1:30 p.m. The Union Hospital East main entrance is at 1606 N. Seventh St. A time capsule viewing also is planned as part of the event.
• The hospital’s Web site is www.myunionhospital.org.
Construction by the numbers
Construction of the four-story (plus a lower level) new 500,000-square-foot Union Hospital East building cost $185 million, with the hospital selling $176.5 million in bonds to be paid off over 40 years. Hospital employees, medical staff, boards of directors and the community generously donated more than $8 million to support this facility, which has two pedways and a helipad, and for the renovation of Union Hospital West.
Here is a look at construction by the numbers:
• 4.8 million pounds of steel manufactured in Terre Haute by Lenex Steel Co.
• 350,000 bricks.
• 53,000 square feet of glass.
• 15,500 cubic yards of concrete.
• 13 elevators, 23 flights of stairs, 1,322 doors and 277 toilets.
• 1,200 skilled workers on project.
• 1.5 million man hours.
• Contractor: Garmong Pepper. Architect: The Estopinal Group.
• Construction gives Union Hospital a total of 380 beds, with 236 beds in the new facility.
Work will start soon on renovation of 104,000 square feet at the existing Union Hospital West.
Source: Union Hospital
Looking at the building layout
Union Hospital’s new 500,000-square-foot east building expansion has four stories and one lower level. Here is the building layout:
Lower level: Cafeteria, kitchen, medical education, gift shop, chapel.
First floor: Registration, emergency room, surgery, recovery, ambulatory surgery, imaging, endoscopy, café.
Second floor: Intensive Care Unit (ICU), telemetry, respiratory therapy.
Third floor: Inpatient physical therapy, orthopedics, neurology, urology, oncology.
Fourth floor: Medical units.
The hospital has all private rooms, allowing for more privacy and increasing infection control.
