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Ed Yeates Reporting Spread out over a huge 100-acre campus, the new $560 million Intermountain Medical Center opens its doors for public tours next week.
The big tent already is going up for next Tuesday's ribbon cutting, but it's just a stepping stone for the folks who will walk inside the million-and-half-square-foot multi-building medical center.
The lobbies feel more like a hotel than a hospital. Warm colors are everywhere. Every room is private. Every room and operating suite has windows. Every room has a bed for a family member to stay with his or her loved one.
"There's a lot of research that suggests that creating a healing environment, one that is soothing and supportive of patients and their families, actually contributes to improved medical outcomes," said David Grauer, CEO of the Intermountain Medical Center.
The newborn ICU also has private rooms. And instead of wasting time going down a hallway into an adjoining room, a newborn infant that gets in trouble after birth is simply passed through an open window instantly into intensive care.
Everything is digital, with laptop connections in every room. And everything is wireless, even for patients calling a nurse. "With this new wireless paging system the call goes directly to the nurse wherever he or she is," Grauer explained.
Trauma One and ER can handle 200 patients a day, and treatment occurs in one of four separate stations, depending on the level of injury or sickness.
Outside, multiple helicopters can land at one time.
The prescription stations allow patients to get medications from a central pharmacy via pneumatic tubes.
Not only are the hallways from one end of the campus to the other wide and spacious, but visitors will never cross paths -- they have their own hallways.
There are five specialty centers on one campus, and because the price tag includes more than $50 million in community contributions, there will be no increase in rates as a result of building this medical center. "[We] have prepared for this over the last several decades," Grauer said.
Again, public tours start next week, and patients will move in on Oct. 29.
Cottonwood Hospital will close its doors on that day, and LDS Hospital will phase down to a small community hospital.
