Amenities Designed with Patients and Families in Mind

When 48 year old Jessica started to experience severe abdominal pain the Wednesday before New Year’s Eve, she tried her best to ignore it.

“Nobody wants to go to the hospital over a long holiday weekend,” says Jessica. But the pain was so excruciating, Jessica ended up in the emergency department of Hackensack University Medical Center on Friday, where she was diagnosed with gallstones and a bile duct blockage that would require surgery.

“Typically, I would have most likely had to wait in the hospital until Monday to be operated on, not my idea of a fun way to ring in 2023,” says the Lyndhurst resident. But Jessica was one of the first people in New Jersey to benefit from the new Helena Theurer Pavilion.

Jessica’s surgeon was immediately able to schedule her for a robotic surgery that would have her home by New Year’s Eve. “It was amazing, I had the procedure on Saturday morning to remove the blockage and my gallbladder, I rested in my private room in the early afternoon and was discharged and home by 6 p.m.,” she explains.

After surgery, patients, like Jessica, stay in single occupancy rooms equipped with the latest technology, including an in-room tablet at the bedside that allows patients to control the lights, shades, TV and room temperature and a flat-screen TV equipped with patient education modules and family-friendly video chat capabilities.

“It was absolutely beautiful with floor to ceiling windows, gorgeous views, it was really quiet, no overhead paging or noisy equipment, I felt like I was in a hotel rather than a hospital,” says Jessica.

In addition to incorporating features that enhance patient comfort, the facility promotes patient safety and team member efficiency. It includes dedicated CT imaging on the ICU floor, a monitor tablet outside each patient room that provides information for team members, in-room team workstations and patient lift systems.

A Pandemic/Health Emergency-Ready Environment

The Helena Theurer Pavilion includes 12 negative-pressure rooms to reduce the risk of aerosolized disease transmission within the hospital environment. However, the Pavilion also includes another unique feature: The entire Pavilion can be converted to a negative-pressure facility in the event of a future pandemic or public health emergency.

Other pandemic/health emergency-readiness features include “pass-throughs,” which are small ports that allow IV tubing and cords to extend outside the patient’s room without compromising negative-pressure airflow, and nurse server systems, which are secure, two-way drawers that allow nurses to stock supplies from outside the patient room and access supplies inside the room.

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