SPRINGFIELD, Ore., Aug. 4 OR-SacredHeartMedical
SPRINGFIELD, Ore., Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Set on 181 acres along Oregon's
scenic McKenzie River, Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend blends the
best of hospitality and health care design to create a place that promotes
healing and wellness and lifts the spirits of patients, visitors and
employees. On Aug. 10, 2008, this 1.2 million square foot, $500 million
medical center campus will open to the public as an estimated 150 patients are
transferred to the new campus from Sacred Heart's existing hospital in Eugene.
"People who visit Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend often tell us
that it looks more like a Northwest lodge than a hospital, and we designed it
that way," explained Jill Hoggard Green, Administrator of Sacred Heart at
RiverBend. In fact, the hospital teamed with world-renowned hospitality and
health care architects to ensure the new facility offered the best of both
worlds, incorporating the clinical needs of a hospital with a calm, relaxing
setting to allow for faster healing.
More than 100 former patients and family members also joined doctors,
nurses and hospital staff to help mold the design of Sacred Heart Medical
Center at RiverBend. In all, 1,200 people served on teams that analyzed
approximately 1,000 hospital processes, providing input on creating an
environment that not only is patient-centered and efficient, but also greatly
decreases the potential for clinical errors.
Sacred Heart will study how many of its new design features are improving
care at the RiverBend campus. The hospital will look at rates of medication
errors and hospital-acquired infections, along with data on length of stay,
patient satisfaction and staff retention to ensure the new hospital is
continually improving.
This research is part of Sacred Heart's commitment to the Pebble Project,
an international initiative launched in 2000 to promote evidence-based design
in health care facilities. Like evidence-based medicine, evidence-based design
relies on research and data to make decisions about building design. The
information is then shared among a network of health care partners who
incorporate best practices into the design of new health care facilities such
as Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.
ABOUT SACRED HEART MEDICAL CENTER
Sacred Heart Medical Center is one of the largest hospitals between
Portland and San Francisco and a regional referral center serving as a Level
II trauma center for an eight-county region. Key services for the nonprofit
hospital include the Oregon Heart & Vascular Institute, Neurosciences
Institute with a Gamma Knife Center, Gerontology Institute, a Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit and specialized surgical services. Sacred Heart Medical
Center has two campuses: RiverBend in Springfield, Oregon, and University
District, located in neighboring Eugene, Oregon. For more information, visit
the RiverBend online press kit at http://www.peacehealth.org/newsroom.
SOURCE Sacred Heart Medical Center
