FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Colleen Leyden, Director of Corporate Marketing and Public Relations
Chester County Hospital
606 East Marshall Street, Suite 203
West Chester, PA 19380
colleen.leyden@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Growing community is met with increased bed capacity as 4 Tower opens July 1
(West Chester, PA) -- Chester County Hospital will welcome patients to its new wing - 4 Tower - beginning July 1, 2013. This is the first unit of the three-floor addition to open.
To meet the long-term health care needs of its rapidly growing community, the Hospital embarked on a building project to increase inpatient bed capacity with private rooms. Construction on the $45.2 million Tower began in March 2012, and the fourth floor will be home to a new Telemetry unit. Overall, the Tower is designed to accommodate up to 72 private patient rooms - a potential for 24 rooms on three floors - all equipped with the highest level of monitoring capabilities and designed with the flexibility to meet medical, surgical, intermediate and intensive care requirements.
A clinical team collaborated with the architects to design this unit, which has rooms complete with three distinct zones - family, patient and clinician. For visitors, each room has a sofa that converts into a table, a desk or a bed for guests who wish to stay the night; the Hospital is implementing a new "Open Visitation" policy for the convenience of patients' families and visitors. For patients, care is centralized and offers the space and privacy to recover. Every room has original artwork donated by Healing Art Works (an Exton-based non-profit organization), an LCD TV and a communication board for nursing care. Patients have the ability to control the window shades, the amount of natural light from large windows and the temperature in their rooms. For nurses, the room has fingertip access to advanced technology to perform their jobs and bedside computer stations for documentation. The entire patient room was created to build a better experience for patients and their families and to make the caregiving process easier. On this floor, there will be a 1:4 nurse-to-patient ratio.
In addition to private rooms, 4 Tower features a spacious Waiting Room, Family Lounge and two open Nurses' Stations. The Nurses' Stations are centrally located between both halls so that the clinical team can easily oversee and manage patient care. What really makes this unit unique is the Telemetry Monitoring Room where three Monitor Surveillance Technicians and several SAM (Support, Assess, Monitor) nurses can track the heart activity of all the patients on the unit, the existing Telemetry and PINU units on the third floor, plus 38 additional beds throughout the Hospital.
Sustainable Features
The architects took great care to incorporate sustainable elements into the design and construction of the Tower. One unique feature that maximizes the view from the Waiting Room and minimizes the impact on the environment is a 1,600 sq. ft. roof-top garden that sits on top of the new linear accelerator vault below. The Vegetated Roof showcases plants that will reduce heat build-up from the roof and provide green views for guests. The Hospital will earn several LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits for the sustainable features of its design, construction and operation.
Coming Soon
The Hospital chose to open the fourth floor first so that as construction moved to other levels, it would create fewer disruptions to patients and clinicians already using the Tower.
- Radiation Oncology: A new Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator will be ready for patient care in August 2013, bringing the highest level of cancer care to the community.
- 3 Tower: In late 2013, The Chester County Hospital expects to open the third floor. This new space will add 24 more private rooms.
- 2 Tower: At least 20 private maternity rooms and an additional well-baby nursery will open in the early half of 2014. This new unit will align with our current Maternity Unit on 2 North. With an increase in new beds, the Hospital will convert its existing Maternity rooms to private rooms.