CLEVELAND — We all recognize that hospitals are designed to help heal patients; but what if they could also be designed to help heal communities? This is the question MetroHealth is attempting to answer with the unveiling of its latest hospital transformation plan.

MetroHealth has begun a nearly $800 million project with Minneapolis-based HGA Architecture, converting half of the county health system’s main campus on West 25^th Street into open green space with connections to the nearby Towpath Trail and other amenities. With this connective design, MetroHealth aims to bolster community wellness as the hospital becomes a major open and active space that can be used by everyone for activity to promote health and community engagement.

With only one to two acres of green space on the campus, this transformation will ultimately transform 25 acres of the 52-acre campus into green space, with the designs’ bottom-line ensuring the makeover of a gray and crowded campus into what they are calling a “hospital in a park.”

Hospital in a Park

The key features of this transformation plan include the installment of a roughly six- to eight-acre park along West 25^th Street, west of Scranton Road and south of MetroHealth Drive, with the space now occupied by the fortress-like Outpatient Plaza, a garage and treatment facility built in 1992. With a new hospital bed tower situated on the southern edge of the campus, MetroHealth would build a new Ambulatory Care Center and an extensive MetroHealth Wellness Gardens.

The MetroHealth Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Center, a nursing home built in 2000 that now inhabits the future site of the wellness gardens, would be removed and replaced by a new tower on the north side of the campus at West 25^th Street and Sackett Avenue. The northeast corner of the campus, now dominated by surface parking, would also become a collection of park-like spaces, with covered parking and indoor walkways making it so patients and visitors will not have to walk outside. The new layout reduces patient and visitor walking distance by 40 percent and eliminates almost all surface parking, according to a statement. Walkways throughout the campus will also include a looped path connected to the Towpath trail.

“We are creating schematic designs right now, and one of our key features is the way we’re creating ‘process neutral design’ that makes the building flexible and adaptable for the future,” said Walter Jones, MetroHealth’s senior vice president of campus transformation. “We know from research- and evidence-based design that views and access to open space and nature is beneficial for patient recovery and recuperation.”

Jones also explained that the implementation of “process neutral design” allows the creation of systems that will be adaptive, efficient and effective when the main campus opens, and for many years thereafter. In return, this design will not only beautify the campus with its trail connection and expanded green acreage, but it will also extend its benefits to surrounding neighbors.

“We’ll be able to incorporate therapies and arts in medicine programming into patients’ healing regimens. The health benefits aren’t just for patients. They’ll extend to anyone who lives, works and plays nearby,” said Jones.

This project plays a role in MetroHealth’s effort to strengthen its West 25^th neighborhood, including forming the CCH Development Corp. and an effort to turn the neighborhood into the world’s first hospital led, EcoDistrict, according to a statement. MetroHealth believes that its campus updates will not only improve care but could spur revitalization in Cleveland as well, CEO Akram Boutros, M.D., told a local newspaper.

“We’re committed to making this a community to be enjoyed by its current residents, but also we have to be committed to bringing new people in,” Boutrous said. “Otherwise this neighborhood is not sustainable as it is with so many vacant and underutilized properties.”

Construction has already begun and is expected to be completed by 2022.

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The hospital calls it a safe and natural birthing alternative for expectant moms in metro Detroit. It combines the comforts of a high-end home with the safety net of a high-tech hospital. The birthing center was built as part of the Danialle & Peter Karmanos Jr. Birth Center at Beaumont through a $6 million gift from Danialle and Peter Karmanos Jr. Karmanos has four sons who were born naturally, including two who were born at Beaumont, Royal Oak.

Natural childbirth does not include anesthesia or routine medical interventions. It means giving birth spontaneously, without induction and at a woman’s own pace. The center is available for women who meet medical criteria for a natural birth based on consultation with a physician or midwife. At around 28 weeks of pregnancy, patients will work with nurse liaisons that will help create a natural birth plan that includes a workshop, online education portal and mobile application, as well as one-on-one support from nurses and physicians.

The center includes six private birthing suites equipped with large hydrotherapy tubs, massaging showerheads, and other special amenities for natural labor and delivery. Nurses incorporate holistic techniques such as aromatherapy, therapeutic touch, reflexology, and music therapy into natural childbirth. Additionally, the center offers an indoor walking path and two outdoor rooftop gardens – one designed for viewing, the other designed as a walking garden for fresh air and movement during labor. If patients are having a home birth they can still utilize some of these natural remedies, for instance, they may want to use aromatherapy oils in their home to help with breathing and calm motions. There are different kinds of scent diffusers that are available for needs such as this and can be discussed first with their doctor.

For mothers, fathers, and families, the center offers a concierge service, cozy furnishings, sleeper sofas, complimentary Wi-Fi, personal refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, iPod docking stations, and a private waiting room, all at no extra charge.

“There’s nothing more important than having a healthy child,” said Danialle Karmanos, in a statement. “Our vision in partnering with Beaumont was to create a first-class facility with the best doctors and nurses, and the tools, resources, and environment to support a natural birth experience for families that choose that path.”

More than 60 percent of mothers who delivered a single baby vaginally in 2008 received an epidural or spinal block, and cesarean deliveries rose in 2009 to almost 40 percent of births, according to babycenter.com.

Dr. Ray Bahado-Singh, chairman, OB-GYN, Beaumont Health System, said in a statement that the new Karmanos Center for Natural Birth “recognizes the voices of many women seeking a natural, holistic approach to labor that could lead to lower rates of medical interventions and Cesarean-section deliveries and faster recovery rates in select women.”

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The major improvements included an updated nurse’s station and operating room, along with the renovation of shared patient rooms, resulting in private rooms for all patients at the birthing center.

“The hospital decided to make this $500,000 investment to renovate the unit; to make the unit more up-to-date so all of our rooms are private now. You can imagine after having a baby and then having to share a room; it’s such an intimate time,” said Tammy Huff, birthing center nursing director at Christus New Braunfels Hospital.

Renovations occurred based on feedback predominantly from patients, with nursing staff and physicians also making suggestions. Before the renovations there were seven post-partum rooms, three of which were shared rooms. Since the renovations, there are now ten private post-partum rooms. With a combination of the updated post-partum and labor rooms, the unit now offers 17 private rooms for patients.

Other renovations include new flooring, changing paint colors to warmer tones and adding new furniture. Labor rooms received pullout beds for family members as well as new flat-screen TVs, and post-partum rooms were given high-back chairs, seats for guests and pullout beds, in addition to new flat-screen TVs.

“We met with a patient the other day who had a baby with us five years ago and then had another baby this past week,” said Huff. “When asked what she appreciated the most, the first thing out of her mouth was that she had a private room and that the unit looks more up-to-date.”

The operating room received new flooring and paint, while the nursery — which has just started construction — will receive new flooring, new counter tops and cabinets, and the nurse’s station inside the nursery will be moved from the middle of the room to the back along the wall to create more open space.

The hospital has stayed open throughout construction. Since the birthing center is on the same floor as the surgical unit, rooms were roped off for the birthing center to use as needed when rooms were closed down.

A major improvement was the renovation of the nurse’s station. The station was expanded from being two separate areas, one for post-partum and one for labor, to one single area.

“The nurse’s station was very small and was a dissatisfaction for our nursing staff and our physicians. And so by knocking that wall out it created a much bigger work area and we now all work together instead of having this wall between us,” said Huff.

The hospital was due for a renovation. The last time it received an update was 12-14 years ago, according to Huff. The hospital decided that now was the time to make updates since the patient base was expanding and it had been something that many patients were requesting.

“Since patient satisfaction is so important to us, we sat down and thought about what we need to do here,” said Huff.

The project was completed in multiple stages, with the operating room and labor rooms done first — with one or two labor rooms under construction at a time — then the private rooms, followed by the nurse’s station and now the current construction of the nursery.

“Our goal was to get the labor rooms finished and then move to our private rooms, and then that way the mothers would start in the labor area and we would have another team on the post-partum side rooms,” said Huff.

The construction crews acknowledged patient needs and respected the daily “quiet time” hours mothers with newborns were given. With this two-hour period, construction was slower, but the workers stayed on task and were very respectful of patients, according to Huff.

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