By Jeanne Wieland | Editor
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| Get a sneak peek at the West Tower in our photo gallery. |
Children’s
WARM WELCOME
The welcome center, the first area families will encounter when they enter the hospital, is glowing with curved wood surfaces, warm lighting, comfortably appointed waiting areas and a 900-gallon saltwater fish tank. Images of flying birds and leaves laid into the floors serve as directional paths for visitors, leading to the admissions desk, the elevators and the dining area.
Such attention to detail might be expected for a state-of-the-art hospital waiting area, but the good news for families is that those niceties extend upstairs into the patient rooms.
Each level of the new tower has its own theme, carried out from the floors to the artwork on the walls to the color choices, Jamieson said. For example, the third floor, the cardiac intensive-care unit, uses a seashell/underwater theme, while the fourth floor, for surgical/medical/ICU patients, has a dragonflies/lily pads theme.
Framed art on the walls all holds to the themes, but has the added surprise of having been created by area school children. The bold lily pad paintings hanging just outside the fourth-floor elevators were created by kindergartners at
ROOMS CATER TO FAMILIES
Once on the floors, amenities for families are everywhere you look. Rooms have built-in family nooks with pull-out, full-size beds, computer desks where parents can hook up a laptop and separate TVs in the nook so parents can watch more quietly while their children rest. (There are separate TVs for the patients.)
“This was something families told us,” Jamieson said. “The rooms always have one TV, and you don’t necessarily want that on right above the child’s bed right as they finally fall asleep.”
In addition, there’s a DVD player and Sony PlayStation in every room.
Colors are soft and muted in the rooms and throughout the new tower. If you’re looking for institutional green and gray, you won’t find that here.
The furniture in the rooms was tested by parents of children who had long stays at the old hospital. Jamieson said some of the first furniture pieces were rejected by parents as uncomfortable, so they kept trying until parents approved.
Older children at the hospital will be pleased to know there’s a teen lounge for patients with video games, Internet access and movies, and maybe not so pleased to know that on the ninth floor there’s a classroom to keep them studying while they are hospitalized.
Each floor also has a family zone, with a kitchen, PCs, showers, laundry facilities and a lactation room, and other areas outside the room where families can relax.
CLEAN SIGHT LINES
Even the staff areas were designed with parents in mind. Most are open or glass-enclosed, so parents can always have a good line of sight to the nurses and doctors. Jamieson said this detail helps reduce anxiety in parents and also helps the staff keep a closer eye on patients.
In addition to traditional open nursing stations, smaller, two-person work stations are set up at points along the hallway. Windows in front of these stations look into patient rooms, but blinds set inside the glass allow families or staff to have privacy when needed.
Jamieson said the floors were all laid out with two traffic patterns: one for the business of caring for patients and one for back-of-house operations such as laundry, food services and medical supplies. Separate elevators allow for these functions to be carried out without families or patients needing to see them.
MORE TO COME
More improvements are expected, including a staffed playroom where parents can drop off siblings while they visit with their child or confer with doctors.
For more information on the new Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin West Tower, visit http://www.thisismychildrens.org/westtower.htm.
Get a sneak peek at the new West Tower in our photo gallery.
