The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower, a landmark 1 million-square-foot bed inpatient tower located at the Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, opened March 19, 2012. The project is the first of many updates aimed at creating a new, modern resource for the growing city.
Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America Inc., initiated a $350 million fundraising campaign to build the new patient tower at Hadassah Medical Center. The campus serves the growing needs of the greater Jerusalem community, providing leading research, teaching, and medical care to multiple cultures and religions at all social and economic levels. The project includes a 19-story tower comprising 500 beds, 60 ICU beds and a 20-operating room inpatient surgery department.
“The hospital expansion bridges the gap between the state-of-the-art medical center and a 3,000-year-old city while complementing the rich history of the existing healthcare campus,” said Bruce Johnson, AIA, LEED AP, principal, HKS, Inc. “It is designed to serve the community with the latest in high-tech and high-touch medical care, while giving the campus a new identity and a fitting sense of arrival.”
“The delivery of healthcare is enhanced through design,” said Shannon Kraus, AIA, LEED AP, principal project designer, HKS, Inc. “On the typical floor, which consists of two 36-bed units, the vertical stacking was organized around a series of multi-level healing gardens that welcome visitors off the public core, and provide a pleasant place to wait with natural light and views to the surrounding region. Within the unit, the triangular shape was developed to reduce patient and staff travel distances while maximizing light into the rooms. The corridors open up to views, providing light in the core of the unit and in many cases creating dayrooms for patients.”
Each unit consists of 12 private rooms, 10 semi-private rooms and one four-bed unit. By introducing more private rooms into the campus, the design serves to enhance patient safety with a clear separation of family, staff, and patient zones from charting alcoves and nurse servers for supplies at the rooms. The semi-private rooms create a private-like setting where each patient has their own window, wardrobe, desk, and family area within the room.
“Patient safety and healing environment concepts also extend to the specialty floors,” said Kraus. “Interventional cardiology is located on the same floor as the cardiology inpatient unit and cardiac care unit, allowing for a consolidated cardiac center that minimizes patient transfers and staff travel distances. The inpatient surgical theatre enhances patient safety and the quality of care through design and technology with the introduction of the sterile core concept.”
Opened in 1961, the extensive campus of Hadassah Medical Center at Ein Kerem contains over 22 buildings, including outstanding research facilities and the schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, and public health.
The 850-bed tertiary care hospital deals with virtually every aspect of modern medicine and serves as a national referral center for the most complex and challenging medical cases. With more than 130 departments and clinics, Hadassah Medical Center provides the most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic services as well as attending to the daily needs of the local and national population and providing sophisticated treatment for international patients.
Hadassah Medical Center was founded by Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America when its original hospital on Mt. Scopus became inaccessible following Israel's 1948 War of Independence. In the ensuing years, Hadassah continued to treat the people of Jerusalem in an assortment of makeshift facilities scattered throughout the city. With no immediate prospect of returning to Mt. Scopus, the women of Hadassah dedicated themselves to building a modern medical campus in the suburb of Ein Kerem.
HKS, ranked among the top healthcare-specialized architectural firms by Modern Healthcare and BD World Architecture, understands and embraces holistic healthcare. Operating from 29 offices throughout the United States, Latin America, United Kingdom, Middle East, India and China, the firm focuses on innovative design, process and delivery. Through a focused visioning approach, HKS collaborates with each client to evaluate transformational concepts that support and improve the patient and family experience, operational efficiency, the latest in technology and future flexibility. For more information, visit www.hksinc.com.