Source:  Google News – 3/2/11

By Alyssa Sunkin
Times Herald-Record

Published: 2:00 AM - 03/02/11

TOWN OF WALLKILL — Splashes of green and blue on the walls. Private patient rooms. A heated helipad just feet from a Level 2 trauma center. Every inch of the new Orange Regional Medical Center is an illustration of the lessons learned from Arden Hill and Horton, which can trace their histories back more than a century, its leaders say. Beyond state-of-the-art medical equipment, the builders of the new ORMC have corrected or enhanced features of the current hospitals in an effort to improve patient experiences and create greater efficiencies.

“It is extremely important to have a hospital that is designed with the patient in mind and continually seek ways to advance care for our patients,” said hospital spokesman Rob Lee.

From the building’s aesthetics to the services it will provide, hospital leaders expect to offer a new level of care.

Adjacencies
At the hospital’s Horton campus in Middletown, the emergency department isn’t even on the same floor as the operating rooms. That inefficiency wasn’t in the original design, but was rather a by-product of a series of expansion projects over the years. In the new hospital, the emergency department, on the first floor, is now adjacent to the operation rooms.

It’s one of several design deficiencies corrected in the new hospital just weeks away from completion.  The bone and joint and neuroscience centers share a corridor with the physical therapy and occupational therapy unit. Intensive care and progressive care units are on the same floor. The surgery and procedure center — for same-day procedures — is next to the units for post-anesthesia care and radiology.

Emergency rooms
The new emergency department will have 50 beds — about twice as many as the Horton and Arden Hill campuses combined — separated not by curtains but by walls, creating private rooms.

The department will have designated spaces for minor, progressive and traumatic care — the last of which will eventually be a classified Level 2 trauma center, something ORMC never had. There is a pediatric room, and the department will have its own CT scan and X-ray machines.

A heated, enclosed garage for three ambulances is located just outside the trauma rooms. At Horton, ambulances have to line up behind each other, covered only by an awning.

Helipad and Trauma
Currently, victims of traumatic injuries from car crashes and other accidents are almost always sent to hospitals out of the region — Albany Medical Center and Westchester Medical Center. But the flight plans for Medevac helicopters may change for some patients once ORMC’s Level 2 Trauma Center is up and running. The hospital will be able treat some traumatic injuries, depending on severity. A heated helipad is located just beyond the ambulance bays, allowing patients to be flown in even when there’s snow on the ground.

NICU
The hospital is developing a Level 2 neonatal intensive care unit, which will offer emergency acute, chronic and critical-care services for premature or sick newborns. St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital has a Level 2 NICU, but Lee said many women with high-risk pregnancies in western Orange County typically travel to Westchester for medical services.

A little privacy
Every patient admitted to the new hospital will enjoy something Horton and Arden Hill can’t always provide: a private room. The new ORMC has 353 private rooms, and is licensed for 30 additional beds; some larger rooms can be doubled in emergency situations.

Aesthetics
Gone are the days of sterile white walls and tiles. The builders of ORMC painted the hallways of patient floors in deep blues and greens and lined the floors with carpet to make the hospital more inviting. Patient rooms are bright with large windows and hardwood laminate floors.

Pneumatic tubes
Forget the bank: ORMC has adapted the pneumatic tube system ubiquitous at bank driveups to transport blood samples and drugs. Instead of cash and documents whooshing from car to bank teller, ORMC will send drugs from the pharmacy to patient floors and blood samples to the labs through the state-of-the-art system with 27 stations throughout the hospital.

Click here to view PDF of Times Herald-Record article. 

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