LIJ Medical Center opens new inpatient tower in New York

The North Shore-LIJ Health System, a New York-based healthcare network, has opened a $300 million inpatient tower in Hyde Park, New York.

The new inpatient tower is a ten-storey structure with 162 single bedrooms that offer hotel like accommodation.

The 300,000 square feet facility houses the Zuckerberg Pavilion and Katz Women’s Hospital. The tower also houses a meditation center, women’s garden, reflecting pool, wellness boutique, an education room, and patient and family resource center. It will open in January 2012.

The size of the hallway of the tower is comparable to a football field in terms of length. The building has a glass facade. Each floor of the tower has minimum two family waiting area. The entire floor is carpeted reducing the noise.

Each room has a private refrigerator, bath, flat-screen television and a safe. All the units have decentralized nursing stations, which enable close monitoring of the patients. The rooms have kidney dialysis hook-ups and feature telemetry technology which enables easy measurement of patients’ heart rate and breathing rates, blood pressure, blood-oxygen levels and other vital information.

Zuckerberg Pavilion is a 57,000 square feet facility which serves as the new entrance for all LIJ services. The pavilion features a double storey lobby. The eight and ninth floor of the building feature 60 single-bed surgical rooms for orthopedic, urological and cardiovascular patients. This floor also has a physical therapy gym.

The Katz Women’s Hospital has a separate entrance. The four floor Women’s hospital offers an array of maternity and gynecological surgery services. It has 88 private patient rooms, 14 labor and delivery rooms, four operating rooms, newborn nurseries as well as space for other specialty services.