by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | March 06, 2020
HCB News: Many hospitals are trending toward smaller satellite buildings to offer services, what made this a better option?
KG: We are a rural state with a population centralized in several primary cities. Beyond that, however, it’s small communities that struggle with resources. We have seen hospitals shut doors and those communities have reached out to us to figure out how to deliver care across the state in the most effective ways.
Lobby Entry, Renderings provided by Perkins and Will
We are the state’s only Level 1 trauma center and that unique status, along with the subspecialties and specialties we offer, created the need to build inpatient capacity here. As an organization, OU Medicine is looking at many different pieces. We have part ownership of a post-acute rehab facility and we continue to look at post-acute opportunities to ensure patients aren’t staying in the highest-cost delivery settings to achieve their healthcare goals. We’re looking at primary care, urgent care centers, and telemedicine. We’re continuing to look at things you see on the national trends, but we have this demand as well as the academic tertiary/quaternary system in the state.
Maybe it’s also, in part, because we didn’t build as much during the time that others did. Today, we’re over 100 percent occupancy every day. So some of the growth we had built into the business case of the patient tower we actually achieved in the current patient tower. We did this by creating unique settings for patients, creating new processes and making sure we had enough resources to bridge the time period until the new patient tower became available.
Patient Corridor, Renderings provided by Perkins and Will
HCB News: Does the expansion also bring an expansion to any services or specialties offered?
KG: We have started geriatric and palliative care programs, and the new space will enable us to really expand the capabilities. We are beginning to develop a burn program. We didn’t have the room to do that in our ICU. Over the last year, we achieved NCI designation. One of the strengths in our services is our cancer program, which includes the only bone marrow transplant unit in the state. This new growth will allow us to expand our bone marrow transplant unit significantly to meet the needs and demands for the state. It will also allow us to include a surgical oncology floor, a medical liquid tumor floor and other services, so we’re going to be able to truly specialize our inpatient care to match our cancer center delivery.
