10. Aug 2007 00:00 11. Aug 2009 10:15

Innovative emergency care by the river

New St. Olavs Hospital will have an innovative acute care services building with helipad at the top and ambulance entrance on the lower level. On the floors between, patients will receive affective acute care like never before at Øya.

10. Aug 2007 00:00 10. Aug 2009 11:32

10. Aug 2007 00:00 10. Aug 2009 11:24

	Gunn Håberget, Center coordinator for the Emergency Wing / Heart-Lung Centre

“This acute care center will be extremely good. At one site we will have everything necessary that is demanded of acute medical competence around the clock,” says center coordinator, Gunn Håberget in St. Olav's "Unit for a New Hospital” 

According to Håberget, the acute care center is an innovation in Norway. No one has planned and built an emergency care facility like the one now under construction at St. Olavs Hospital.

The Acute Care Center, called Akutten, consists of the most complex section of the Heart-Lung Center’s north wing. It will be built with six floors (above ground) near the Cecilia Bridge that spans the Nid River, and is organized vertically facing elevators and stairways. The spacious elevators will enable rapid connection to operating theaters, imaging, intensive and observational care beds, along with various step-down care.

A helipad will be built on the roof. In the basement level there is an ambulance entrance and acute care center, with an entrance from the back side along the river. The Emergency Communication Central (AMK) will be placed directly below the helipad. The city's Walk-in emergency and outpatien clinic is planned with a separate entrance on the ground floor of the building, next to the main entrance for the Heart-Lung Center. Glass skyways from the 2nd and 3rd floors will connect to the Gastro Center and the Mobility Center.

	Hans O. Sijehaug, head of Clinic for Anesthesiology and Acute Care

“The logistics of the acute care center is well thought out. In situations where minutes count, that can save lives,” says Clinic Head, Hans Ole Siljehaug, at the Clinic for Anesthesiology and Acute Care.

Siljehaug is particularly happy with the short distances from the helipad and the ambulance entrance to the central treatment areas, such as the acute care center with accompanying x-ray room (including CT-machine), acute operating theaters and intensive care section. This close vicinity will save valuable time, both for patients with serious injuries, and for other patients who need immediate and cross-departmental, acute medical assistance. Heart patients will have the advantage of the proximity of the cardiology-heart observation department that is also found in the acute center.

“When it comes to the situation for emergency patients, I look forward to moving. In the new building we will have far better framework for such treatment. I do not know of any other hospital in the country that has managed to gather these functions that are integral for acute care treatment in such a compact manner,” says Siljehaug.

The Clinic Head also stresses that the acute center was planned with catastrophes in mind. In the acute care center there are spacious areas for the sorting of patients for further treatment. The Acute Care Center will open in the New Year of 2010.

The Acute Care Center – floor by floor

• On the roof: helipad, catastrophe storage and technical rooms
• 6th floor: Intensive care of lung patients, AMK-Center, offices
• 5th floor: Intensive care of vascular surgery patients, offices
• 4th floor: Intensive care of heart patients, cardiology, heart and electro-physiology labs, offices
• 3rd floor: NTNU-designated areas, technical rooms
• 2nd floor: Operating theaters for acute care, vascular surgery and post-surgical observation, cardiovascular. In conjunction with the acute care center: operating theaters for heart-lung surgery and intensive care beds
• 1st floor: Emergency Department, Orthopedic Injuries Poly-clinic
• 1st sub-level: Ambulance entrance and Acute Care Center with trauma unit, bildediagnostikk diagnostics, observation beds, catastrophe preparation areas
• 2nd sub-level: Wardrobes, technical rooms

  	The hospital with the Emergency wing / helipad in the foreground (picture from 2009)