Building the Children’s Hospital of the Future

How do you build the children’s hospital of the future? Start by asking family members, patients, clinicians, and other healthcare providers what they want. That is exactly what MUSC Health did when designing MUSC’s new Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital set to open in October 2019.

More than 20 different committees comprising hospital staff, physicians, nurses, and family members of patients identified features that would make patients and their families feel comfortable, safe, and confident about care they receive in South Carolina’s only pediatric hospital.

Incorporating those features along with clinical care staff needed to optimize care, and required more than just a different building design, but also required different approaches to communication among patients, families, and hospital staff, as well as technology that supports a higher level of engagement.

One example is MUSC’s transformation of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) experience at Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital to better meet the needs of infants and families already under severe stress.

Brett Seyfried, associate CIO, infrastructure at MUSC Health

“Based on input from family members, we realized that the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) had to be designed differently,” says Brett Seyfried, associate CIO, infrastructure at MUSC Health. The existing NICU has 66 bassinets in an open room, but the new NICU will have 82 individual rooms for each infant with space for family to stay with the baby.

“Parents wanted the ability to talk or sing to their baby, or talk to each other, without disrupting other parents with their babies,” he explains.

Healthcare provider concerns about the ability to easily communicate with parents and monitor babies was addressed with communication strategies supported by technology that allows parents to easily communicate with providers and sends alerts to nurses when needed.

Read the full story now: Technology Plays Key Role in Patient-Centered Room of the Future

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