New Rush Hospital Building Design Draws Notice
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- The new hospital being built along the side of the Eisenhower Expressway on the Near West Side still is a year away from completion, but it's been the source of curiosity for months.
A lot of people ask Rush University Medical Center's Tony Perry about the new hospital's shape: Is it a butterfly? A bow tie? Or even the landing pad for cartoon character George Jetson?
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Dr. Perry is the Clinical Transformation Officer overseeing construction of the new 14-story adult hospital and surgical center for Rush at the corner of Ashland and Harrison.
He says the shape of the upper floors of the building has stimulated a lot of conversation.
Dr. Perry says Rush didn't set out to make an architectural statement, merely a health care statement.
He says the design is an "expression of how we think Rush does health care and builds an environment around health care."
Dr. Perry says all he patient rooms will be the same size and have everything situated in the same place, providing consistency to the caregiver.
There will be no central nurses stations on floors, for instance. Nurses will be situated much closer to the patients.
Dr. Perry says the emergency room will be state-of-the-art and will be prepared to handle emergencies ranging from pandemics to bio-terrorism.
He says the ER will be able to double the size of its patient capacity, change air handling at the flip of a computer switch and do "mass isolations of patients."
Dr. Perry says labor and delivery rooms will have a back door that leads right into the neonatal intensive care unit for infants born in critical condition.
