{"id":52432,"date":"2011-12-15T14:07:38","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T19:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=52432"},"modified":"2011-12-19T12:14:38","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T17:14:38","slug":"health-center-staff-offer-input-into-design-of-new-hospital-rooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/12\/health-center-staff-offer-input-into-design-of-new-hospital-rooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Center Staff Offer Input into Design of New Hospital Rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Health Center staff offer input into the design of a medical\/surgical patient room proposed for the new hospital tower. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center Photos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Building 18 on the lower campus in Farmington is home to more than just storage these days. The building now features a glimpse into the Health Center\u2019s future by displaying mock-ups of some of the rooms that will be in the new hospital tower.<\/p>\n

The mock-ups include a patient room, operating room, hybrid operating room, emergency department resuscitation room and treatment bay, and the PACU bay. Earlier this week, staff members were invited to view them and offer their opinions on the design and functionality of the rooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to get the input of the people who work at the bedside day in and day out,\u201d says Mary Ellen \u201cMell\u201d Hobson, director of the Department of Staff and Patient Education. \u201cI think the people who are really committed have made an effort to come down and take a look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting really great feedback from people,\u201d says Neil Alcorn, project architect with SBA\/HKS Architects. \u201cPeople don\u2019t like some things, but that\u2019s the point. It\u2019s easier to find out now \u2013 when we\u2019ve got it mocked up and it\u2019s fairly cheap and it\u2019s only one room, rather than fixing 169 rooms five years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Health<\/a>
Health Center staff have been asked whether they would prefer a four foot versus a five foot patient room door. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Doctors, nurses, and physical therapists are some of those who have toured the rooms and provided input. One of the most talked about features is the size of the inpatient room doors. Most hospital rooms have four foot doors but it can be a tight squeeze when rolling a patient bed in the room, with nurses ending up with bruised knuckles, among other issues. But expanding the doorway to five feet also increases the cost.<\/p>\n

Other hot topics are the location of the utilities (suction, oxygen, etc.), and whether they should be mounted vertically or horizontally over the patient\u2019s bed; where to put the computer work stations since computers will no longer be on mobile carts; and even where to store the trash so it is out of sight, is up for debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a really good, energetic process,\u201d says Hobson. \u201cThe next steps will be for the designers to incorporate these ideas into the next phase of development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcorn adds, \u201cCan I say we\u2019re going to make everybody completely happy, no. But are we listening to everybody, of course we are.\u201d The design team will be back the week of Jan. 23, 2012, for the third round of design development planning.<\/p>\n

If there is a problem that the designers can\u2019t solve, then the decision will rest with senior management.<\/p>\n

Some of the most difficult issues to solve will involve technology. The designers are trying to predict the future and figure out what kind of high-tech gadgets the hospital will be using years down the road.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photos of proposed patient room features are on display in Building 18 for Health Center staff to view. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No matter what, the new patient tower will be a big change for staff going from a circular blueprint to a rectangular one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the biggest change, the widest variance for staff that I have ever worked on,\u201d says Alcorn. \u201cOperational transition planning will need to start early.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a couple of months since the first mock-up and I think it\u2019s great that we can come here and see the furniture in here now,\u201d says Rebecca Green, an assistant nursing manager for Surgery 7. \u201cThey have really taken into account what we said on our surveys, and what we said about the design of the room as well as the functionality. It\u2019s exciting to see the process moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tell us what you think about the proposed rooms by sending us a comment<\/a> through the Bioscience Connecticut website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s important to get the input of the people who work at the bedside day in and day out, says the director of the Department of Staff and Patient Education. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":52437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-52432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-30 09:00:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52432"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52561,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52432\/revisions\/52561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/52437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52432"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=52432"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}