New hospital: cutting edge in patient care
Ceremonies to mark the beginning of construction of the new Medical University of South Carolina Hospital were held April 8 at the construction site on Courtenay Drive.
A
rendering of the MUSC Hospital.
The complex will dramatically change the landscape of the lower, western edge of the Charleston peninsula and ultimately replace the Ashley Avenue facility which has served for 50 years as the teaching hospital for MUSC.
“We expended a great amount of effort to find out what will fulfill the needs of the 21st century hospital patient,” said John Heffner, M.D., medical director. “The hospital was designed around the patient and the community. The design not only reflects the modern futuristic aspects of health care, but echoes the style and tradition that makes Charleston unique.”
The facility will be built so that the patient is at the center of care. During the planning phases, lay groups and frontline care givers, like nursing groups, spent much time talking with administrators to help identify the best configuration of the hospital interior. The first stage of the hospital is designed to serve patients with cardiovascular or gastrointestinal problems. As other phases of the hospital are added, other services will be provided, but everything is planned in advance so that when new stages are added on, they won’t look or function like an afterthought.
The specialty concentration makes for great efficiency, according to Fred Crawford, M.D., chairman of the Department of Surgery. “If you are referred here with a heart problem, you will find everything necessary to get you seen, promptly diagnosed, and appropriately treated in the best possible way, all in a relatively small space. You won’t have to go to six or eight different locations. This has been a dream of mine for years; to build a new hospital related to a single disease entity and see how efficient we can make it, and see how much better we can make it for our patients.”
What excites Crawford the most is the planned operating rooms in the new hospital, which he describes as truly futuristic.
During surgery, physicians will only have to press a button to retrieve information they need to treat the patient. Anything that is on the patient’s electronic record, whether it be an image from a catheterization, lab values or an echocardio-gram, can instantaneously be brought up on a monitor in the operating room. Crawford explained that currently, for example, an anesthesiologist who needs a lab value during surgery, asks the circulating nurse to call down to the lab. The person in the lab reads the values, and the nurse writes them down, giving the paper to the anesthesiologist who writes down the values in a different place. In the new hospital, the anesthesiologist will press a button, and the lab values immediately will come up on a monitor in the operating room.
The new MUSC hospital will be one of the first in the nation to have this capability in the operating room.
Conversely, physicians in the operating room can be immediately available to patients in any other area of the hospital. If an ICU nurse sees that a patient is in trouble, and needs the patient’s surgeon through a camera in the room the nurse can send an image of the patient directly to the operating room.
The physician can access any information needed about the patient, thus helping the second patient without leaving the operating room.
Crawford said the technology is so advanced that prior to opening the new hospital, staff will train in the old hospital rooms outfitted with the new technology before the move to the new facility.
The technology is part of a system known as the advanced point of care clinical system, according to Frank Clark, Ph.D., vice president for information technology. The system captures all salient patient information electronically, and is available to all staff with authorization to the patient’s record. Every encounter that a health care professional has with the patient is documented electronically, as well as all lab tests and diagnostic images.
The electronic system eliminates errors, according to Clark. For example, when a physician orders medication, the doctor keys the prescriptions into the electronic system rather than writing a paper prescription. This immediately eliminates the possibility of errors from handwriting. As soon as the physician puts the prescription into the system, which holds a vast array of clinical information about the patient, the system automatically alerts the physician if there is any possibility of an adverse reaction to the drug being prescribed. When the pharmacist receives the electronically-generated prescription, there is a second check. The pharmacist has the patient’s total electronic record, and reviews the appropriateness of the prescription, given the patient data.
After the pharmacist fills the prescription, the pharmacist puts a bar code on the prescription, indicating the medication and the name of patient for whom it is prescribed. A third safety check comes into play prior to the nurse administering the medication. The nurse scans the patient’s wristband, the medication, and the nurse's badge with a wand.
This ensures that the right medication is given to the right patient. “And all this is accomplished with a wireless system,” said Clark.
The new hospital is also being built with the idea that everything put in the hospital will become obsolete fairly quickly.
“Even with the best planning in the world, we don’t know what the future will bring,” said Crawford. “We don’t know whether minimally invasive techniques will replace more invasive procedures. What a cath lab is today might need to be used to house a CT scanner tomorrow. The hospital is being built so things can be moved around very flexibly without disrupting the rest of the hospital. We are minimizing the problems of future renovation to accommodate future technology by building flexibility in from the outset.”
But efficiency and technology are just a part of the new facility.
Featuring a lot of light and windows, the building will be aesthetically pleasing. “We believe that the healing environment is very important in having patients recover from their illness,” said Heffner. “We spent a lot of time looking at color schemes and environment, creating an ambiance where our patients will be comfortable.” Much thought has been given to the configuration of the hospital interior. For example, the layout of floors will limit the transportation of patients on gurneys and wheelchairs through public areas. Family waiting rooms will be close to the areas of care. In addition, patient rooms will be spacious and are designed to accommodate special needs of families and visitors.
Heffner said the hospital was designed with sensitivity to the Charleston style of living.
“We like to think of the new hospital as one of the jewels in Charleston’s
crown,” he said. “When visitors come to Charleston, it will be one of the
landmark features. Just like the new bridge will be a landmark on the east
side of town, our hospital will be a landmark on the west side.”
Friday, April 8, 2005
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