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.
12. Oct 2009 13:48 12. Oct 2009 13:48
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.
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| Center coordinator Gunn Håberget | |
“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 the hospital’s “New Hospital Unit".
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 with operating theaters, imaging, intensive and observational care beds, along with acute and regular care beds.
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A helipad will be built on the roof and in the, and in the basement level there will be an ambulance entrance and acute care center, with an entrance from the side by the river. The Emergency Communication Central (ECC) will be placed directly below the helipad. The Emergency Department and the city of Trondheim outpatient clinic / walk in emergency are planned with a separate entrance on the lower level of the building. Next to it will be 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.
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| Head of Anesthesiology and Acute Medicine, Hans Ole Siljehaug. | |
“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 Medicine.
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 be filled sequentially during the first half of 2010.
The Acute Care Center – by floor
On the roof: helipad, catastrophe storage and technical rooms
6th floor: Progressive care of lung patients, ECC-Center, offices
5th floor: Progressive care of vascular surgery patients, offices
4th floor: Progressive 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 (24).
1st floor: Walk-in injuries, City of Trondheim outpatient clinic
1st sub-level: Ambulance entrance and Acute Care Center with trauma unit, imaging diagnostics, observation beds, catastrophe preparation areas
2nd sub-level: Wardrobes, technical rooms
