Lucile Packard Children's Hospital launches two-year remodeling project
Renovations of the hospital's first floor will include the new Blood Disease and Oncology Center
Last weekend movers helped to relocate a number of clinics from Packard Hospital to 730 Welch Road.
BY KRISTA CONGER
If you’ve noticed medical equipment streaming out of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in the past few weeks, don’t be alarmed. The exodus marks what is for many the first visible step in a major renovation of the hospital’s first floor.
The remodeling project, designed to expand capacity and improve care, involves relocating nearly all the first-floor clinics to the new Mary L. Johnson Ambulatory Care Center at 730 Welch Road, across the street from the main hospital. The center was funded through a gift from Charles and Ann Johnson in memory of their daughter, Mary.
After settling in to their new digs, the clinics will sport increased space, child-friendly exam rooms and additional parking. Although most clinics will remain on Welch Road, some, including adolescent medicine, will relocate to Castro Commons in Mountain View.
The remodeling of the hospital’s first floor is expected to take about two years, with some elements completed sooner.
In the vacated first-floor space, the children’s hospital will eventually gain 11 inpatient beds, six state-of-the-art operating rooms, 20 intensive care beds, a dialysis unit and the Pediatric Blood Disease and Oncology Center. Radiology is the only department on the first floor that will remain unchanged.
“We’re going to be better able to serve our patients with an increased number of beds and provide an oncology center that is much more patient-friendly and has better integrated inpatient and outpatient components,” said Susan Flanagan, the hospital’s chief operating officer. “Perioperative, surgical and post-operative care will be located near one another on the ground floor and will be very family focused.”
As an example of how the changes will help patients and their families, hospital officials noted that the new Day Hospital, where children with cancer will receive chemotherapy and other infusions, will be just down the hall from the Pediatric Blood Disease and Oncology Center’s 27-bed inpatient unit. A lab within the center will eliminate long waiting times for families.
“The idea is that the patient is sometimes an inpatient, sometimes an outpatient and sometimes both,” said Michael Link, MD, the hospital’s chief of oncology and the Lydia J. Lee Professor in Pediatric Cancer. “We’re trying to weave everything into one center—to make it one seamless experience.”
Other changes will include a revamped main lobby that will be more inviting and informative, colorful exam rooms and waiting rooms with video games, computers and other diversionary activities for children and parents alike. Security will be tightened through the use of visitor badges and turnstiles.
Consolidation of cardiac services into a comprehensive heart center as well as work on the new dialysis and observation units is scheduled to be done next year. The new 16,000-square-foot surgical suite—with built-in cameras for teleconferencing, 60-inch wall-mounted plasma screens, remote robotic surgical capabilities and voice-activated hardware—is supposed to be completed at the end of 2005.
For the latest news on the construction, visit http://www.lpch.org/NewsFeatures/construction/constructionIndex.html