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Project Unites Two Hospitals A New Era for the ER Building Connects University, Clarkson

Posted on: Friday, 28 October 2005, 18:01 CDT

By Nichole Aksamit

Soon patients, visitors and staff won't have to ask: "Which ER at the Nebraska Medical Center?"

A new building opening to employees today, to the public this weekend and to patients next month features a combined emergency department. The building should alleviate confusion that's lingered since Clarkson and University Hospitals merged.

The $57.3 million Hixson-Lied Center for Clinical Excellence physically connects Clarkson and University, two adjacent midtown hospitals that merged in 1997 to create what is now the Nebraska Medical Center.

The four-story building, sunk between the two main hospital towers, has been on the drawing board since the late 1990s. Sluggish fundraising at the outset delayed the groundbreaking until 2002.

Three years later, the resulting building combines and centralizes duplicate departments in the two towers and consummates the hospitals' union.

Nebraska Medical Center CEO Glenn Fosdick said the project puts the hospital's facilities on par with the care its staff has long provided.

"Having this design is going to make it so much more attractive and efficient," he said. "It's a better environment for our staff and certainly for our patients and their families."

The facility houses a new emergency department that -- with 29 private rooms, four trauma bays and special areas for mental health patients and those who might take longer to diagnose -- is among the Midwest's largest. The project also brings 27 new operating rooms and a new radiology department with the latest high-tech gadgets, a pharmacy and other related services within close reach of the ER.

"Right now, we have to go down a hall and down an elevator to get to radiology," said Dr. Robert Muelleman, director of emergency medicine. "In the new building, it's all in the department or right next door."

Muelleman said the facility's space and technological upgrades (like a new computerized patient tracking system) should help patients get to and through treatment more quickly and with more privacy.

He and Shelly Schwedhelm, director of surgical and emergency services, said the facility also should enhance the University of Nebraska Medical Center's emergency medicine residency program, now in its second year of training ER physicians. Four of the hospital's new operating rooms feature teleconferencing equipment that can broadcast video within the hospital and across the campus. "It kind of opens the world from a teaching perspective," said Schwedhelm.

A newborn intensive care unit, or NICU, crowns the building's top patient floor. It has a woodsy feel, with a giant, lifelike tree sculpture in the waiting area, wildlife images on the walls and a rooftop garden with a pond and a view of the city.

Though the new unit will serve the same number of babies as the old one (up to 34), it will feature private family rooms instead of a large open ward -- and more than four times the old space. Features for baby include sound buffers and indirect lighting believed to improve outcomes for wee ones. Amenities for parents include a nearby family lounge, a parent resource library and two hotel-like overnight rooms for families who want to practice caring for their infant.

The upgrade is arguably overdue. Dr. David Bolam, the unit's medical director, said the new facility marks the unit's first major renovation since 1979. The Nebraska Medical Center is one of the last hospitals in the Omaha and Lincoln area to update its NICU.

"It's just extremely exciting for us to get to occupy this facility," Bolam said.

The building also includes better security. Babies in the NICU now will wear security bracelets. In the ER, in addition to regular hospital security guards, Schwedhelm said an off-duty police officer will stand guard 16 hours or more each day. And a specially trained German shepherd dog named Oxy will make rounds with her nurse handler most evenings -- both to calm and cheer patients and to provide security.

The building's near-completion is triggering a wave of renovations in Clarkson and University towers. John Lehning, the hospital's facilities director, said the renovations, estimated at $40 million and expected to roll out in phases over the next four years, will replace the old ERs and NICU with new patient waiting areas, administrative offices and more room for the burgeoning radiology department.

Employees can tour the new building after a dedication ceremony at 10:30 a.m. today. Public tours are 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

The building will open to patients in phases, with the ER to open Nov. 10, the NICU on Nov. 16 and the surgery suites in January.

The building is named for the Lied Foundation Trust and its sole trustee, Christina M. Hixson, in honor of a $10 million donation. Fosdick said private donors paid for all but about 4 percent of the construction costs. The rest will come from the hospital's operating revenue.

Source: Omaha World - Herald

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