WINFIELD, IL - RTKL Associates Inc., a leading international architectural and planning firm, has been selected to design a $235 million patient tower at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, IL, approximately 28 miles west of downtown Chicago. The 276,000-square-foot facility is anticipated to achieve LEED® Silver certification. It is the latest step in the implementation of a hospital master plan that RTKL completed in 2006.
"The goal of Central DuPage Hospital's new bed pavilion is to provide hotel-like comfort and amenities, while at the same time having 100 percent of the patient rooms ADA accessible and equipped with patient lifts," said Alexander "Sandy" Faurot, AIA, ACHA, vice president of RTKL and senior project manager. "The staff will not need to relocate patients to make way for newly admitted disabled or bariatric patients, and the lifts will help reduce injuries for nurses moving patients of any size."
The bed pavilion will form a new front entrance for the hospital. The main lobby will connect the conference center and auditorium to the existing hospital by way of a two-story curving concourse facing a landscaped courtyard. Another two-story lobby will join the bed pavilion to the ambulatory care pavilion and existing parking garage.
The five-story tower will include 202 private patient rooms, divided into three units per floor. Designed to maximize patient safety, privacy and comfort, each of the 340-square-foot rooms will include a separate family area with sleeper sofa, recliner, television, and work station with Internet access. The rooms will replace the same number of medical/surgical beds located in 144 rooms of an older hospital wing.
Nurses will work from decentralized stations located in alcoves between every two patient rooms. Each patient room will also have a bedside computer for staff who will be able to connect the screen to the patient's television to share an x-ray image or educational materials.
Construction on the bed pavilion is slated to begin in spring 2009, with an anticipated completion in fall 2011. Currently under construction in preparation for the bed pavilion is a 360-car parking lot and an expansion of the existing imaging department. The imaging department will expand into an adjacent courtyard space and will feature a landscaped roof garden visible to ICU patients in the surrounding wings. The green roof will also help achieve the hospital's goal for sustainability.
