Imagining the Children's Hospital of the Future
Pediatric Hospital Plans to Rebuild and Modernize to Provide Family-Centered Care
X
August 2 , 2012

Oakland, Calif.- What does the Children’s Hospital of the future look like?

In an interactive, activity-filled morning, Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland hosted more than 150 community members, patients, staff and physicians in a brainstorming session to create a vision for the future of the hospital. Participants took a virtual trip around the Bay Area and gave their input on important issues that will help promote recovery for children.

This child and family friendly event also featured informational videos, inspirational patient speakers, collaborative art exercises, various station activities with an open dialogue, and wrapped-up with an “idea shopping” session, where participants spent their allotted play money on the most valued concepts from the event. Among the most popular ideas were escape and play spaces, family centered rooms, a better connection to the outdoors and integrated communications technology.

"We are motivated by the community’s commitment to our hospital and look forward to working with them to develop plans that will transform Children’s Oakland into a new state-of-the-art facility providing the highest quality care,” said Dr. Bertram Lubin, President and CEO of Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland. “By uniting our mission with the community’s vision, we can work together to build both a community of healthy children, and a facility that serves them.”

This visioning event is just one of the many community engagement events that Children’s Oakland has hosted in preparation for their upcoming rebuild and modernization project. A series of neighborhood meetings were held in March and April to share preliminary thoughts with the community and receive their feedback. As a result of these sessions, monthly "Coffee Talk” meetings have been set up to address specific areas of interest and concern in the community.

"Our visioning event was intended to inform some of the design concepts that will be incorporated into our Master Plan,” said Richard DeCarlo, Executive Vice President and Chief of Hospital Operations. “We are at the beginning stages of developing concepts to upgrade and improve our facilities, and we hope to file an application and develop a draft Environmental Impact Report later this year. The meetings being held now will influence and assist us in filing our application and ensure that what we are proposing is in line with what the community would like to see.”

The leadership of Children’s Oakland has already established that one of their rebuild guiding principles is to minimize disruption to its neighbors. This means maximizing the use of existing land and buildings in order to minimize neighborhood impacts. A major emphasis of the project will also aim to keep the height of any new buildings consistent with the height of the existing facilities.

The hospital has hired TAYLOR and HDR, both architectural and interior design firms focused exclusively on healthcare facility design. The design teams have a successful reputation in working with hospital staff, patients and their surrounding community in developing healing environments that engage the community and provide a sense of ownership.

"We gained a tremendous amount of information about what our community wants in a very short amount of time,” said Damon Barda, principle architect. “We are so pleased at the outpouring of support we received through this event, and we look forward to incorporating the wealth of ideas we gleaned into a design that will please patients, families, staff and the community.”

MEDIA CONTACT:
Sam Singer
415-227-9700


About Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland
Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland is Northern California’s only independent not-for-profit regional medical center for children. After 100 years of serving children’s health needs, Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland is beginning a new planning process to rebuild and modernize its hospital to meet the demands of seismic regulations and improve facilities for children, adolescents and their families.

Last year, the hospital recorded more than 200,000 outpatient, 11,000 inpatient and 50,000 emergency room visits. These demands are one reason why the hospital, Northern California’s only freestanding designated Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, must update its facilities to meet the demands of future generations of young patients.

For more information about the modernization plans at Children’s Oakland, please visit www.CHOnext100.org.

back to top