Surgical Strike

Convenience and comfort are paramount at new Nationwide Children’s facility

with plenty of skylights for natural light, as well as TVs, books, magazines and a children’s play area.

The path into the subspecialty suites starts with a height/weight room, after which visitors are directed to the appropriate room. The area has four suites, each of them with five examination rooms, cutting down on doctors’ traveling time and allowing them to reach their patients more quickly.

“Dividing them into suites allows for maximum efficiency up here,” Fedel says.

There is capacity on the second floor to add more suites if needed, says Hoang.

The goal is to offer the same type of family-centered care and access to specialists as is available Downtown.

THE RENOVATED Nationwide Children’s Hospital facility in downtown Columbus has grabbed headlines in recent weeks, but right here in Westerville, a new facility has been expanding surgical options for months.

In late April, Nationwide Children’s opened the doors at the Westerville Surgery Center. The two-story, 46,000-square-foot, $18.4 million facility is the first suburban ambulatory surgery center for the hospital. It employs 43 people.

The center at 455 Executive Campus Dr., is on the same campus as the other two Nationwide Children’s facilities: the Westerville Close to Home Center and the Westerville Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center.

It serves as a suburban extension of the surgical services available on the hospital’s main campus, offering a much more convenient location for residents of Westerville and other areas north and east of downtown Columbus. A number of Nationwide Children’s doctors have clinics in Mansfield, so it’s also more convenient for them.

“We expect to draw from about a fouror five-county area,” says Libbey Hoang, the hospital’s director of planning and business development.

Outpatient ambulatory surgery is the major focus of the center’s first floor. It has four operating rooms, 12 private pre-operative rooms and 11 private post- operative rooms, as well as a lounge for parents to use while their children are in surgery. A reception area is designed to quickly direct visitors to where they need to go, and sound-dampening walls on each registration desk enhance privacy.

A key feature of the surgical area is its one-way floor plan, which ensures that incoming patients will not encounter outgoing patients. Other features designed to put patients and parents at ease include artwork by Westerville students in the preoperative rooms, animal themes for each set of operating room doors, windows to the outside in all post-operative rooms and gifts for outgoing patients.

“All the children who come to see us get a toy to take home,” says Dr. Gina Fedel, medical director for the facility.

The parents’waiting area has a TV and snack machine, as well as subtle colors and muted tones to help quell nervousness.

The recovery area in which the postoperative rooms are located has its own exit and pick-up area; outgoing patients never have to go back into the lobby. The exit door is also recessed and obscured by landscaping.

The second floor consists mainly of medical and surgical pediatric subspecialty suites, including gastroenterology, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, pediatric surgery, plastic surgery and urology professionals. It also has a large reception area

But the facility shares more with its Downtown parent than just the services. It’s also decorated with the same nature tones, flight themes and color schemes intended to put patients at ease.

“Research shows that having a connection with nature provides a calming response,” Hoang says.

Colorful images of birds, butterflies, trees, leaves and other flora and fauna are visible throughout; there are even bird designs hanging from the ceiling in the entrance area. The designs are functional, too, helping with way-finding – such as the leaf pattern that indicates where someone may want to stop, like at a nurse station.

It even hides snack and drink machines behind walls so children who are coming for surgery and thus cannot eat are not tormented.

Above: The reception area is designed to help visitors get to where they need to go as quickly as possible. Below: Pre-operative rooms like this one are set up to help put patients at ease. Opposite page: TVs, books, magazines and a children’s play area are all part of the skylit second floor reception area.

“Every off-site is going to have this theme, look and feel,” says Mary Ellen Peacock, senior strategist for media relations at Nationwide Children’s.

Along with the June opening of the standalone emergency facility on the OhioHealth Westerville Campus and the projected 2013 completion of Project GRACE at Mount Carmel St. Ann’s, the Westerville Surgery Center is yet another major addition to Westerville area residents’ medical options.

A virtual tour of the facility can be accessed at www.nationwidechildrens.org/ westerville-virtual-tour.

Garth Bishop is editor of Westerville Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@ pubgroupltd.com.

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