St. Christopher’s Hospital to Add 110 Beds

PHILADELPHIA — In an effort to enhance pediatric care in one of Philadelphia’s poorest urban areas, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children will undergo a $110 million expansion, scheduled to begin this February. The main focus of the construction is the new four-floor, 135,000-square-foot Pediatric Critical Care Tower and 30,000-square-foot clinic, which will house the community’s Center for the Urban Child project that was created to help urban children address issues such as malnourishment and violence.

The Philadelphia Torcon project team will serve as the construction management firm on the update — as the company expands into the Philadelphia market — and Philadelphia-based EwingCole is the design architect.

The project will upgrade the ICU and NICU services in the Pediatric Critical Care Tower with 50 new critical care beds and 60 NICU beds. Plus, the expansion will include a new OR, as well as upgrade the parking facilities and other logistics around the campus.

The Center for the Urban Child will also see major improvements. The facility’s focus is to provide children with comprehensive medical treatment and services to give the patients and their families better access to health care, as well as improve the diagnosis of and care for diseases that impact the community’s children.

It will be built on two floors with almost a duplicate layout, according to Amy Novak senior project manager for Torcon. The flexibility of the space will allow for the clinic to use beds for a specific kind of care one day and then move them around to accommodate a different one the next day. More than 350 children visit these clinics each day, and the expansion will allow the hospital to accommodate up to 50 percent more.

“The flexibility of the space will really help to keep up with the changing needs of the community. It’s going to be more central to the campus, and because it’s a newer facility, that means newer technology,” Novak said. “There will be interactive-type displays in lobby and exam areas, which will provide educational material addressing a variety of topics for patients to benefit from while they wait for their appointment.”

As for the locals, Novak said they’re excited about the project. It will create jobs in the construction workforce, and after the facility opens, more than 300 new jobs will be added to the local economy. “The community will have top-of-the-line equipment, allowing for the hospital to attract the best doctors to the facility,” Novak said.

Right now, Torcon is currently seeking permit and zoning approvals, working very closely with local council members. The next challenge will be maintaining the use of the campus and safety of those visiting the campus.

Currently, St. Christopher’s Hospital for children has 189 beds and has been serving the children in the community for more than 130 years. It is one of the only pediatric hospitals in the country with two pediatric medical school affiliations: Drexel University College of Medicine and Temple University School of Medicine. Through research and innovation from the affiliate schools, the hospital hopes to continue to advance new pediatric treatments.

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5 Things the Best Children’s Hospitals Have in Common

Some children see a visit to the hospital as an adventure; for others it is terrifying. The best children’s hospital show their patients that their facility is a place where healing occurs, where people go to get better. Design matters immensely when it comes to children’s hospitals because receptiveness during treatment and rapid recovery can be profoundly influenced by environment.

Here are several design ideas that will make your children’s hospital among the best:

Encourage inclusiveness

Make public spaces appealing to preschoolers as well as teenagers, since both are children’s hospital patients. In waiting rooms, keep toys on one side of the area and fish tanks, televisions and other items of general interest on the other side of the room so teens can choose where they want to sit. Vary color, texture and interest items throughout the hospital to create a soothing environment from the moment a child sets foot inside. Interior themes, such as aquatic, astronomy and sports, can be used to identify corridors for easier recognition by the patient and family members.

Think like a parent

Wall-mounted diversions and healthy food vending machines can sooth and engage people in waiting rooms. Design these areas with family clusters of upholstered chairs and tables, rather than long rows of stiff individual chairs, so families have the comfort of their own space. Make sure the waiting area is far enough away from elevators so that small children don’t wander away.

Family Style.

Dining with others helps child patients eat better. Hospital food can be strange to anyone, but easy access to the cafeteria or a communal area on each patient floor where children can interact mitigates the trauma and enhances healing. Playrooms, often supervised by volunteers, are a necessity on each floor, and can be the place for computers with Internet access, as well as the site for family visits. The playroom must be carefully designed to be sunny, spacious, safe and alluring, so that children are motivated to move and interact. There may well be nursery wall decals used to add color and points of interest to the room that keep the children happy and entertained.

Be in the Testing Zone

Design imaging equipment rooms to be adjacent to each other to reduce the walking distance young patients must travel. Locating the MRI, CAT scan and labs in the same area improves the efficiency of the caregivers and reduces patient stress. Naturally, it also helps to contain infrastructure costs. Harnessing electrical surges and supporting equipment weight are necessary precautions that can be more easily applied to a designated area. Medical imaging equipment is a major investment for any institution, but it can be less costly if equipment is located together with the support of the proper infrastructure.

Sunshine heals

Provide some patient rooms with movable walls so a single room can be expanded into a double room to accommodate supplies, equipment, family and loneliness. Although the trend in pediatric design is toward private rooms, a child who is going to be in the hospital for an extended stay and whose parents cannot stay with him or her may want to be in a room with another child.

Provide patients with internet access to allow them to stay connected through computers in the playroom or provide wi-fi in every patient room. It may seem like a small design issue, but if you give patients the ability to control the lighting in their room, they will feel empowered to take control of aspects of their illnesses. Most importantly, ensure that the sun can shine into all patient rooms. Besides the research that documents the biological importance of adequate levels of Vitamin D, sunshine makes people feel good, a factor in healing that cannot be overemphasized.

Tony Kelly, AIA, PE, LEED AP, is a healthcare architect with EwingCole, a national architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm, with offices in Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Irvine, California.

EwingCole

http://www.ewingcole.com/

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St. Christopher’s Hospital to Add 110 Beds

5 Things the Best Children’s Hospitals Have in Common