Emphasis is on efficiency

GLENDALE — As construction wraps up on Glendale Adventist Medical Center’s new west tower, the finishing touches are being put on a facility that aims to focus on efficiency, expediency and expansion, officials say.

Scheduled to open in early May, the 190,000-square-foot building will boast 60 new patient beds, a new emergency department, two magnetic resonance imaging systems and four catheterization laboratories, as well as many other facilities.

“This will help us to meet the needs of our physicians and patients,” hospital Associate Vice President Robert Marchuk said. “It’s an exciting project, we’re really growing.”

Many of these services were formerly held in the hospital’s 1955 wing and new surgery building, which are slated to be torn down following the opening of the new tower.

“We’ve tried to achieve better access,” said Warren Tetz, the hospital’s senior vice president/chief operating officer. “We’re trying to expand 35% to 50% on all our diagnostic capabilities.”

Official groundbreaking on the project took place in November of 2003, and as the final touches are put on the new facility, construction workers are moving swiftly to get the building ready for operation.

The basement floor of the building contains a spacious new emergency department with 36 beds, nine more than the previous department, Tetz said.

One of the special features in the new tower is an express elevator for emergency department patients that moves swiftly between the basement, surgery, radiology and the catheterization labs — which are examination rooms with imaging equipment.

“This elevator is solely for the use of transporting patients to the cath labs and surgery, making [the trip between floors] faster,” Tetz said.

One floor up on the tower’s ground floor is a surgery department with state-of-the-art digital technology and large operating rooms.

On the main floor is the lobby — which extends to the second floor — along with outpatient radiology and outpatient testing.

The second floor contains the Heart and Vascular Institute and Neuro Procedure Department.

On the third and fourth floors are the cardiac step-down and neurological step-down rooms, which cater to patients who have come out of the intensive care unit.

Each of the new patient rooms also has a daybed that folds from a couch into a bed and will allow family members to spend the night with their loved ones.

The rooms will also have computers with Internet connection, a feature made possible through donations from IBM.

“Often the family member is here and trying to do their business as well, it’s really a significant benefit to be able to stay here with a patient,” Tetz said. This service is taken a step further on the fifth floor, which holds the surgical intensive care unit, and offers a patio and a bathroom with a shower for those visiting patients in that unit.

“This building was really done with the family in mind,” Tetz said.

Along with the tower is a new 499-space parking structure, which will help to accommodate future traffic.

“This tower is built for expansion,” Marchuk said. “As the hospital grows and [number of] patients grow, we can add more facilities as we need to.”

The total cost of the hospital updates is $142 million, a portion of which was paid for with donations. The Healthcare Foundation at Glendale Adventist Medical Center — the hospital’s fundraising arm — has raised more than $9.5 million for the project, nearly completing its goal of $10 million, foundation President David Burghart said.

“Right now we are really focusing in on the end [of the fundraising],” Burghart said.

Among notable donations were $500,000 from the Henry L. Guenther Foundation and another $500,000 from Gladwin and Amy Gill, owners of St. Anne’s Hospice in Glendale. The Glendale Community Foundation chipped in $10,000.

The hospital is set to hold a public grand opening celebration and health fair at the new facility on April 29.