Image courtesy of St. Luke's Hospital
St. Luke’s Hospital’s Center for Cancer Care is aiming to make cancer treatments more bearable with a $6.2 million expansion and renovation to improve the patient experience. Highlights of the two-year project, which launched its first phase last November, include a new infusion center, private infusion rooms, 11 new exam rooms, a healing garden, a family conference center, a pharmacy, a resource library, and an additional oncologist.
“As the baby boomer generation ages, more and more people are going to encounter this illness, so we needed room to expand,” explains Don Miller, vice president of operations at St. Luke’s. “The emphasis is on the whole patient experience, creating a calming, soothing environment for patients and their families.”
The first phase, completed in mid-May, consolidates several infusion centers into a single large infusion center with 21 patient treatment areas and amenities such as personal TVs, wireless Internet, and large, west-facing windows. The second phase, slated for completion in December, will consolidate the physicians’ offices into one location and create a resource library and family conference center. The final, yearlong phase of construction will include a new lab on the building’s first floor and renovated radiation oncology areas.
One of the expansion’s cornerstones is a healing garden that can be seen from the windows of the infusion center. It will include paver pathways surrounded by trees, native perennials, fountains, and a pergola. “Many patients spend six to eight hours in a chemo chair,” says Dr. Don Busiek, a medical oncologist at St. Luke’s, “so if you can get up and move around, go outside, it makes things a lot more pleasant.”
For physicians, the project will also improve efficiency with electronic medical records and provide more room to see patients. “Now, sometimes when one room gets full, there can be a backlog; more rooms will make it a more efficient experience for both the physicians and the patients,” says Busiek. “It’s a project we’ve been talking about for about a decade—it’s long overdue.”
