Swedish Set to Fully Open New Hospital in Issaquah Tomorrow Morning

– Health-care campus is King County's first new hospital construction in more than 25 years

– Patient opening set for Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7 a.m.

SEATTLE, Oct. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Starting Tuesday morning, Nov. 1 at 7 a.m. the Eastside community will have a new, full-service hospital with the complete opening of the 550,000 square-foot campus at Swedish/Issaquah. The final phase of construction is now complete, and hospital staff and patients have full access to this revolutionary new facility. From the five-story medical office building and the cancer center to the visitor-friendly environs of Cafe 1910 and the retail stores, the public will encounter an entirely new hospital experience.

The completion of this second and final phase of construction marks the first time in more than 25 years that a full-service hospital has been built from the ground up in King County. The final product is a showcase of Swedish/Issaquah's advances in technology, paired with an environmentally friendly design and a new hospital infrastructure.

"With Phase II now complete, we're proud to offer the full complement of services to our patients in the growing Eastside communities," said Kevin Brown, chief strategic officer, senior vice president and chief administrative officer of Swedish/Issaquah. "Our goal has always been to bring health care closer to home. Starting Tuesday, we will begin doing just that by offering the community access to the full array of inpatient and outpatient services."

The latest phase adds to the work done in Phase I, which was finished in July, including the medical office building housing primary and specialty care clinics, the Swedish Cancer Institute, a full-service emergency department, pharmacy, laboratory, imaging center and eight retail stores. As part of the Phase II launch on Nov. 1, 80 inpatient beds will open, and over time the hospital will eventually include 175 beds as patient volumes grow.

The Latest Technologies and Top-Notch Amenities

From the emergency department to patient-care suites, the facilities at Swedish/Issaquah are designed to change the way people experience medical care. A few examples include:

• The Swedish/Issaquah Childbirth Center. The Center includes a staff of more than 100 professionals and features eight new, state-of-the-art LDR (labor, delivery and recovery) birthing rooms as well as postpartum suites. The LDR rooms include Jacuzzi tubs, a sleeping area for husbands or partners, stereo systems with iPod jacks, and a hotel room service-style dining program.
• Medical/Surgical Inpatient Unit. Each room is designed to create efficiencies for staff, and is spacious enough to accommodate the needs of family members. Rooms have pull-out couches to accommodate families. Every room has been designed with added safety features, like a rail from the bed to the bathroom to prevent accidental falls.
• Inpatient Care Units: Patients and families who must spend time overnight in the new hospital will experience a restful, healing environment that blends world-class customer service with safe, high-quality medical care. The clinical staff at Swedish/Issaquah will expedite the care of patients to minimize waiting and to optimize patient flow through the system. An example of this can be found in the Emergency Department, where anyone needing emergency care will be treated in 90 minutes or less.

"From the beginning, we were confident this new hospital could be a model for the latest innovations in health-care delivery," said Dr. John Milne, vice president for medical affairs at Swedish/Issaquah and an emergency medicine physician. "Our goals were to combine advanced technologies, reduced energy consumption and lower operating costs, while delivering the best health-care services available. The new facility is an innovative example of how this can be done."

New Standards in Energy Efficiency

The new hospital will also be setting new standards in energy efficiency. The Issaquah campus delivers on Swedish's commitment to reduce its energy footprint. Because hospitals spend more on energy per square foot than any other commercial building type, Swedish took steps to reduce its energy demand from the new facility.

Some aspects of the energy-efficient strategies at Swedish/Issaquah include:

• Installment of a heat-recovery chiller to capture the heat generated by cooling devices, to use throughout the hospital, thus saving energy
• Installment of 'green roofs' on some buildings to improve the quality of water drained from the building, and to reduce the amount of storm-water runoff
• Making targeted energy-usage goals with Puget Sound Energy, the regional electricity and gas utility
• Installing oversized duct work to lower the demand for energy-intensive fans
• Using high-efficiency boilers for the heating system

Using these and other strategies Swedish/Issaquah is likely to set a new standard for energy use by hospitals. A typical hospital uses about 250,000 BTU per square feet a year to operate. Swedish/Issaquah was designed to use about 150,000 BTU per square feet per year, and may use even less.

Swedish targeted a 10-year payback for its investment in energy efficiency and experts believe it will easily meet that. The entire hospital is designed for flexibility and adaptability, as Swedish's needs change in the future.

Retail and Cafe 1910

Visitors who walk into the five-story atrium at the entry to Swedish/Issaquah will know immediately that this is a different hospital experience. But they'll encounter other differences in the main building, too.

Swedish/Issaquah includes 16,000 square feet of retail amenities that complement the medical center's services by offering options that are not available in a traditional retail shop, including products focused on the needs of pregnant women or new mothers, post-operative surgery patients and other unique customers. Swedish/Issaquah also offers a unique drop-in child-care center for parents who prefer to not bring their children, ages six weeks to 12 years old, to their medical appointments.

The new facility is also home to Cafe 1910, a restaurant-style cafe that helps staff and visitors choose healthier foods. Cafe 1910, named for the year Swedish opened its doors, has no deep-fat fryers and does not sell soft drinks as ways to help visitors select healthier options. It also features a wood-fired oven, which lends a gourmet touch to many dishes.

The retailers are co-located in the atrium plaza, which links the medical office building with the inpatient portion of the campus.

Meeting a Need

The Swedish/Issaquah project is a response to the growing number of patients and visitors cared for in the former Issaquah Emergency Department and clinics, which opened in 2005. In the year before construction began on the new facility, the former Issaquah campus registered more than 50,000 patient visits, an indication of the need. In addition, the new facility creates more than 900 new jobs for people working in the ambulatory-care clinics and hospital settings.

Medical Staff Leadership

In September, Lily JungHenson, M.D., M.M.M., F.A.A.N., was named chief of staff at Swedish/Issaquah. Dr. JungHenson has already moved her neurology practice to the medical office building.

"This facility is ushering in an exciting new wave of extending primary care and specialty medical services closer to where people live and work," said Dr. JungHenson. "I am proud to help bring the quality of health care we have been providing at our medical centers in Seattle to the Eastside."

Dr. JungHenson is a national leader in the treatment and research of multiple sclerosis (MS), and has a special interest in legislative advocacy and wellness for MS patients.

Location

Located at 751 N.E. Blakely Drive in the Issaquah Highlands, the new Swedish/Issaquah medical campus sits on 12.5 acres of land just off I-90/Exit 18.

For More Information

For more information about Swedish/Issaquah, visit www.swedish.org/issaquah.   

About Swedish

Swedish has grown over the last 101 years to become the largest non-profit health provider in the Greater Seattle area with 11,000 employees, more than 2,800 physicians and 1,700 volunteers. It is comprised of five hospital campuses (First Hill, Cherry Hill, Ballard, Edmonds and Issaquah); freestanding emergency departments and ambulatory care centers in Redmond and Mill Creek; Swedish Visiting Nurse Services; and Swedish Medical Group – a network of more than 70 primary-care and specialty clinics located throughout the Greater Puget Sound area. Swedish opened a new emergency department and medical office building (MOB) on its Ballard campus in November 2010 and a new MOB and hospital in the Issaquah Highlands in July 2011. In addition to general medical and surgical care, Swedish is known as a regional referral center, providing specialized treatment in areas such as cardiovascular care, cancer care, neuroscience, orthopedics, high-risk obstetrics, pediatric specialties, organ transplantation and clinical research. For more information, visit www.swedish.org, www.swedishcares.org. 

www.facebook.com/swedishmedicalcenter or www.twitter.com/swedish. 

In 2007, Swedish embarked upon an ambitious $100 million fundraising campaign. Campaign investments are used to support a wide-variety of initiatives throughout the health-care system, including cancer, heart and vascular, women and children, neuroscience, and orthopedics as well as programs to support underserved populations. To date, the campaign has secured gifts totaling more than $82 million. For more information or to support the campaign, visit www.campaignforswedish.org. 

SOURCE Swedish Medical Center