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Forum Health Set to Open New Maternity Hospital in May
BOARDMAN, Ohio -- A hospital unlike any other in Ohio, designed specifically for pregnant women, new mothers and their babies, will open Mother's Day weekend at Forum Health's Beeghly Medical Park.The three-story Women & Infants Pavilion, to cost $18 million, "is not just a birthing center," says Dr. Samir A. Wahib, Forum's chairman for obstetrics/gynecology. "It is a free-standing hospital, the best in Ohio. It really is magnificent." The Women & Infants Pavilion features 11 private labor/delivery/recovery rooms with private baths and showers, 17 private post-partum rooms, four antepartum rooms for high-risk patients, a 22-bassinet nursery, a 17-station neonatal-care unit with one isolation room, a triage area with four exam rooms, two operating rooms and a chapel -- plus a bistro and gift shop.What truly sets it apart from other hospitals, says Phillip E. Sowa, Forum's chief operating officer, is the family-friendly, homelike atmosphere and patient-centered philosophy of care.Unlike traditional hospitals that shuffle patients from administration to labor, then to delivery and then to a postpartum recovery room, that serve preselected meals at a given time, limit visitors and visiting hours, the Women & Infants Pavilion will limit the need to move patients about. It will place them in private labor/delivery rooms when they are admitted and move them to private postpartum rooms with ample room for family and visitors sometime after they give birth.Both the labor/delivery and postpartum rooms are equipped with pull-out sofa beds, Internet access and furnishings and art work that conceal medical equipment.Meals will be served room-service style so that patients can eat whenever they like and choose their own menu, Sowa continues. Children are welcome and there are no restrictions on visiting hours.Should a mom or baby develop a health problem, operating rooms and the intensive-care unit "are right down the hall," he says.Security will be just as rigid as in Forum Health's other hospitals, Sowa says, with security bands placed on babies shortly after birth that lock down all ports of entry if a baby is moved from his or her restricted area or if the band is broken. Video cameras and security guards will monitor activity in the building.The neonatal intensive-care unit will also stand apart from those in other hospitals, says Dr. Firas Saker, neonatologist and director of the special care nursery at Tod Children's Hospital. The neonatal intensive-care unit at Forum's Women & Infants Pavilion is a division of Tod Children's Hospital.With monitors going off and phones ringing, traditional neonatal intensive care units are crowded and noisy,Saker says. There is little room for families and almost no privacy. Most were built 20 or 25 years ago, he adds, and few have been revamped.In the neonatal intensive-care unit in the Women & Infants Pavilion will be 150 square feet of floor space for each patient, Saker reports. Lighting will be softer and indirect, noise will be reduced, and there will be ample room for parents. Mothers can nurse their babies and provide "what we refer to as 'kangaroo care,' where they hold their babies close," he says.Because the facility offers the latest and best medical equipment and expertise, 99% of babies born at the hospital will be able to be cared for there, Saker adds. Only those with very rare conditions will need to be transferred to more specialized hospitals."The new Women & Infants Pavilion is more than bricks and mortar," says Kristopher Hoce, president and chief executive officer of Forum Health. "It represents a fundamental change in care delivery." The introduction of the new hospital, he declares, demonstrates Forum's commitment "to deliver the best health care anywhere."The Women & Infants Pavilion is part of a $102 million expansion of facilities at Beeghly Medical Park, Northside Medical Center, Trumbull Memorial Hospital and Tod Children's Hospital.The expansion projects, Hoce says, are part of a long-term strategy to enhance care and service while increasing patient access and convenience. The new Women & Infants Pavilion, he notes, is centrally located among those Forum Health most often serves."We are responding directly to our community's needs with facilities designed for specific purposes -- rather than the traditional 'general hospital' approach -- and locating these facilities in the heart of our population centers," Hoce continues. "Our community can expect more -- across the board -- when the new hospital opens in May," Sowa says. "Forum delivers more than 2,400 babies a year, and our goal is to ensure they have the very best medical care possible. Our patients, the OB/GYN community, our staff, everyone associated with Forum Health's maternity and infant services, can expect more from this new facility and the level of service made possible with our focused-care approach."Once the pavilion opens, the labor and delivery unit at Forum Health's Northside Medical Center will close. "We will still have some clinics there," Sowa says, "but there will be no deliveries. Those services will all be transferred to the new hospital."Forum Health operates North Side Medical Center, Trumbull Memorial Hospital, Tod Children's Hospital, Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital, Austintown Medical Park, Beeghly Medical Park, Elm Road Medical Park and Forum Health at Home."