April 12, 2012
The new $1 billion building along Orleans Street will feature more than 500 private rooms, dozens of operating rooms, 28 elevators and new emergency rooms for children and adults.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be on hand for the ceremony. The children's center will be named in his late mother's honor. The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center joins the Sheikh Zayed Tower for adults on the campus. The adult tower named through a gift from the President of the United Arab Emirates.
The state of Maryland contributed $100 million to the construction of the building and 36 percent of the cost came from philanthropic contributors like Michael Bloomberg and The President of the UAE according to Hopkins officials.
The private rooms help with patient safety according to Dr. Ed Kasper, clinical director of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. "Because of patient safety issues, particularly infection control you want one patient in one room. The old days of wards are over. And even the days of two beds will shortly be over," says Kasper.
The new building is about ten years in the making. Sue Culp is the nursing manager for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She tells WBAL Radio that many staff members are smiling when they think about the new building. "If anybody asks any of us, we smile. You can't help it. The space is extraordinary. The whole vision is extraordinary. From the artwork to the whole layout of the building. It is magnificent," says Culp.
Culp is also excited that her unit will not only have private rooms for the babies born premature but also that the families of those newborns will have more room as they take care of the child.
Dr. Edward Kasper says it will be nice to have everything related to cardiology in one area. Kasper believes the new equipment for the cardiac unit is a "game changer."
"We've had a very good working relationship for decades with cardiac surgery and with vascular surgery, but now we will all be practicing together on the same floor at the same time," says Kasper.
Dr. Kasper is also excited about the artwork featured throughout the hospital. The private rooms have window shades that feature art.
"The shades in each of the rooms which is Jim Boyd's work and reminiscent of painted screens and Baltimore rowhouses. The artwork on the wall and the sculpture in the children's area. All of it is just gorgeous, beautiful artwork," says Kasper.
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Anne Kramer
WBAL-TV
Baltimore, MD.