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River Pavilion Tower by the Numbers
TWO OF THE
four floors in the River Pavilion expansion
of Kadlec Regional Medical Center are set to open in early
October, with the remaining two floors scheduled to begin
accepting patients in December.
Floors 8 and 10 are the first to open. The 8th floor will
provide 27 additional acute care rooms for adult inpatients with
medical or surgical conditions who are not critically ill. The 10th
floor will be the site of 20 rooms for an expanded Intensive Care
Unit.
When opened, the 7th floor will add 27 acute care patient
rooms, and the 9th floor will provide 20 intensive care rooms.
“This new space gives us all breathing room,” said
Nancy Dahlberg, RN, Intensive Care manager. “Every patient
at Kadlec will now have a single, private room. We are also
allocating more rooms to the ICU, which will reduce the
number of patients we are now turning away who need
this important care. Plus, all four of the new floors have
phenomenal views of the river and the region.”
Health care staff integral to design
From the initial concept of the expansion through move-in,
Kadlec’s nursing and health care staff has been deeply involved.
Their central role in patient care makes them uniquely qualified
to provide input on the facility design and structure of the
units.
The process started in April 2014 with the creation of teams
that included nurses, physicians, therapists and patients.
“It was early in the design process, and we wanted
to create the ideal units,” said Dahlberg, who along with
Kathy Christensen, RN, administrative director of Nursing
Services, headed up the teams.
Initial steps included open forums and then the creation of
a paper design mock-up of the units. The teams then built the
units in a warehouse, using cardboard. Equipment was brought
in to allow the teams to run through traditional care situations
and simulated drills to see if the room designs created the space
and flow they were looking for. If not, they moved the cardboard
walls around and repeated the drills until they were satisfied.
The teams focused on space for families, accessibility of medical
Now 10 floors—
making it the
tallest building in
the Tri-Cities
Adds 94 patient
rooms, which allows
for all private rooms
at Kadlec
Expands
Intensive
Care Unit by
20 patient
rooms
New Tower Floors Opening Soon
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Nancy Dahlberg, RN, left, and Kathy Christensen, RN,
lead teams that were instrumental in the design of
the new four floors of the River Pavilion.