by Tracy Ostroff
Contributing Editor

Summary: Solving dual challenges of pragmatics and aesthetics, RTKL’s design for the Central DuPage Hospital, Winfield, Ill., provides environments that work in concert with medical treatment to promote healing and health. The details of the new 278,000-square-foot, 202-bed facility help doctors and nurses perform their jobs efficiently and offer patients hotel-like comfort and amenities.

The $235 million patient tower, which the architects refer to as the bed pavilion, is the latest step in the implementation of a hospital master plan that RTKL completed in 2006. The architects say they expect the U.S. Green Building Council to certify the bed pavilion as LEED® Silver.
The client tasked the team with modernizing the patient rooms and emphasizing patient-centered care, accommodating the needs of families, and staff efficiency. “The goal of Central DuPage Hospital’s new bed pavilion is to provide hotel-like comfort and amenities, while at the same time having 100 percent of the patient rooms ADA accessible and equipped with patient lifts,” says Alexander “Sandy” Faurot, AIA, ACHA, RTKL vice president and senior project manager.

The bed pavilion is the new front door of the hospital, a change that will help tie the building together along the front façade, Faurot says. The main lobby will connect the conference center and auditorium to the existing hospital by way of a two-story curving concourse facing a landscaped courtyard. Another two-story lobby will join the bed pavilion to the ambulatory care pavilion and existing parking garage.

Everything in its place
The five-story tower will include 202 private patient rooms, divided into three units per floor. Designed to maximize patient safety, privacy, and comfort, each of the 340-square-foot rooms will include a separate family area with sleeper sofa, recliner, television, and work station with Internet access. The entire facility is wireless, and even equipment like wheelchairs and imaging machines will have wireless chips to track their whereabouts.

Patient safety, privacy, and comfort are promoted in the details. The architects looked at the elevation of every component of the hospital room, from outlets, switches, and blood pressure cuffs to soap dishes and hand gels and worked to locate them intelligently in the room, Faurot says. An upholstered headwall makes it seem more like a hotel setting, but also masks some of the devices that are necessary for patient care. “All the outlets are clustered together and not just attached to the nearest stud.”

The goal was to anticipate all of the elements that need to be in the room and to integrate them, rather than make it seem like they were accommodated after the fact, Faurot says.

Staff efficiency
The same architectural interventions that make the spaces more comfortable increase patient safety and staff efficiency. Nurses will work from decentralized stations located in alcoves between every two patient rooms. Each patient room will also have a bedside computer for staff who will be able to connect the screen to the patient’s television to share an x-ray image or educational materials. There is ample counter space for charting and other paperwork.

The rooms will replace the same number of medical/surgical beds located in 144 rooms of an older hospital wing. The architects designed the building so that it can be expanded one level up vertically as patient demand and budgets warrant. There will be a helipad on the roof. With eight wings of patient rooms, each one will have an area that can be completely isolated for infection control.

Good for nurses, doctors, and staff, there is a patient lift rail in every room and an alcove it slides into to keep out of sight and from underfoot. The availability of this equipment and its accessibility make the rooms more functional and safer. “The staff will not need to relocate patients to make way for newly admitted disabled or bariatric patients, and the lifts will help reduce injuries for nurses moving patients of any size.” The planning also increases opportunities for avoiding medical errors.

Patient safety and comfort are further guarded by door swings arranged so that the room is not exposed to the hallway. Double doors in the toilet area provide more space for caregivers to provide assistance. Still, they did not sacrifice amenities for accessibility. “Even with all the requirements, we tried to make the toilet rooms like hotel rooms, with features like built-in hairdryers and a shelf for glasses and toiletries,” Faurot notes.

Patient-centered, consumer-driven
The focus on ambiance is driven by the notion—well internalized by architects, perhaps, but not as widely intuited by the general public—that environments can help heal. Faurot also notes that hospitals, including DuPage, recognize that consumers shop for hospitals the same way they shop for other products and services, with patients much more savvy about the types of facilities and amenities they want in a health-care provider. He says that the client’s culture, which recognizes construction and design as a driver of patient satisfaction, helped shape the project. There is little paper clutter in the building, such as signs for blood drives or the latest seminar. It is all handled on electronic bulletin boards that can be updated almost in real time. Much like meeting rooms in a hotel, the conference rooms have electronic signs at the door to announce the events taking place.

Construction on the bed pavilion is slated to begin in spring 2009, with an anticipated completion in fall 2011. Currently under construction in preparation for the bed pavilion is a 360-car parking lot and an expansion of the existing imaging department. The imaging department will expand into an adjacent courtyard space and will feature a landscaped roof garden visible to ICU patients in the surrounding wings. The green roof will also help achieve the hospital’s goal for sustainability.