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| NYC's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will open its outpatient surgery center in January. Image: Unsplash.com |
Nobody
likes going to the hospital—especially when it’s for something big and scary,
like cancer. Sanitary white walls, humming machinery, woozy patients and
worried family members—no thanks! But one hospital is aiming to make your visit
quicker, friendlier, and more comfortable even if you’re suffering from a
serious illness.
The
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan’s Upper East Side will open
its $200 million new outpatient surgery center this January. With the latest
technology, room for future innovations, and a gorgeous design by Perkins
Eastman and ICRAVE, the Josie Robertson Surgery Center will completely redefine
what it means to go to the hospital.
Thanks
to an active board including Bill E Ford (General Atlantic), James
Robinson (RRE
Ventures LLC), and Charles
Sawyers (The
Column Group LLC), the new Surgery Center will not only look great; it will
comfort both patients and their families, as well as making use of the cutting
edge of healthcare technology (think robots in surgery and iPads available for
patient use!).
One
big technological win is that patients will receive plastic tracking badges as
soon as they arrive. These badges will collect data about how much the patients
can move around after surgery and how well they’re recovering. That’s good not
just for the patient and their doctor, but also for useful insight into future
patient needs.
As
for patients’ families, they’ll have plenty of support as well, including
mobile device charging stations and an Xbox nook for fitness activities in the
waiting room. The building design, inspired by hotel lobbies and co-working
spaces, will put them at ease during a stressful time.
And
we’re talking serious surgery here—say, a double mastectomy and breast
reconstruction—performed with state-of-the-art equipment and in a healthy,
soothing environment that gets patients in and out within a day.
JRSC
exists partly because Memorial Sloan Kettering’s main campus is running out of
room. But it’s also meant to be a place where medical staff can innovate and
really serve their patients face-to-face and in a personal way.
“There’s
nothing else like this that I’ve ever heard of,” said
Brett Simon, and anesthesiologist and the JRSC’s director. He also pointed out his
team’s dedication to meaningful patient interaction and support: “While it
might not be that hard, medically, to get someone out the door, having them
emotionally and spiritually happy and feeling supported is really a big deal.”
