reporter2
10-06-12, 00:01
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/top-stories/new-2b-hospital-boasts-super-vip-suites
Published June 09, 2012
New $2b hospital boasts super VIP suites
The all-single-room flagship Mount Elizabeth Novena has the feel of a luxury five-star hotel, and houses 254 medical suites
By Nisha Ramchandani
A PENTHOUSE-LEVEL, super VIP suite complete with a living room and roof terrace.
Going by the description, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for the top floor of a luxury five-star hotel or a trendy residential development, but the Chairman's suite is one of three super VIP suites at Parkway Pantai's new $2 billion Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital.
"It has a very luxurious feel. At the same time, the caregiver is able to be stationed there and help with recovery," said Tham Tuck Cheong, managing partner at Consultants Incorporated Architects + Planners (CIAP).
Architectural firms HOK and CIAP, both of which specialise in healthcare, worked on the project.
Aside from the super VIP suites - aptly dubbed the Chairman, Presidential and Royal suites - the all-single-room flagship hospital offers eight VIP rooms, 37 deluxe rooms and 206 single rooms. Fees for the rooms are still being finalised.
Mount Elizabeth Novena also features 254 medical suites, of which over 80 per cent were put up for sale and have been taken up by over 170 specialists. Parkway Pantai is retaining the remaining suites for its own use.
To make patient rooms more patient-friendly, rooms are angled or canted, with the bathroom tucked in a corner, allowing nurses to keep an eye on the patient from the corridor and cutting down on the distance between the bed and toilet to prevent falls. The layout of the room also creates more space for family members so they can spend time with the patient.
Patient rooms are developed with everything in the same place, as opposed to mirror images as they typically are, to reduce medical errors.
Another feature of the hospital is the connectivity between the specialists' medical suites and the in-patient wards.
As far as possible, the different levels of specialties of the doctors' medical suites are aligned with the corresponding patient wards and diagnostic rooms to ensure better connectivity.
"Having the physicians so close and so accessible - (the absence of which) was a common complaint in other facilities - works very well for us," said Lee Lian Hai, group vice-president (group project and construction management) of Parkway Pantai.
Parkway Pantai, a wholly owned subsidiary of IHH Healthcare, which in turn is owned by Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional, has three other hospitals in Singapore - Gleneagles Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital and Parkway East Hospital.
The 14-storey complex, which could open its doors by end-June, received its temporary occupation permit (TOP) from the Building & Construction Authority (BCA) on April 23. It is the first greenfield private hospital built here in recent years.
Construction took 23 months in total, while the norm for such a project would be about 30 months, Mr Lee said.
"The direction we got for design was (Parkway) wanted it to be high-technology but (with) the warmth of hospitality. The idea was a five- or six-star hotel feel so it's warm and inviting," said William Roger, HOK's director of healthcare design.
In terms of medical features, Mount Elizabeth Novena has en-suite day surgery rooms and 13 operating theatres (OTs), including hybrid ones which allow imaging equipment inside the OT.
It will also have a paperless documentation system and cutting-edge diagnostic imaging tools such as the Biograph MMR, which can do a PET scan and MRI in one sitting. Softer features, in the form of lush greenery, ambient lighting in the ICUs and new equipment which improve processes, aim at making the hospital both patient and staff-centric.
The hospital, which covers some 73,797 square metres in gross floor area (GFA), was recently awarded the Green Mark Platinum Award by the BCA for its environmentally friendly initiatives, for which it was also granted a 2 per cent GFA bonus.
Smart features include water management systems to achieve savings of 30 per cent, an air-handling system for optimal cooling in the OTs and ICUs, solar panels as well as noise-reducing materials.
One of the biggest challenges in constructing Parkway's new flagship was the site of the hospital, which was small and triangular in size, with one curved side, the architects said.
"We only had access to the hospital off that one curved side - Irrawaddy Road. One thing we had benefiting us was that the site was sloped. The slope site permitted us to create multiple entry points," said Mr Roger. "A sloped site for a hospital is good because we can get access to multiple parts of the building ... (so) the patients, staff, the materials (are) able to get to the hospital in an orderly way."
Another challenge was constructing the hospital next to an MRT line, with the vibration from the trains.
A lot of thought and planning has gone into the design and construction of the hospital, with materials needing to be selected carefully, ensuring they can be easily cleaned to prevent infections from breaking out.
In addition to heightened security in the form of security guards and cameras, the building has been strengthened to withstand any blasts.
"There is a structural separation between the carpark block and imaging department so (the accuracy of) equipment within the imaging department, which is very sensitive to vibrations, is maintained," Mr Tham said. "Designing a hospital is very different from designing any other building."
A total of 70 experts were involved in the planning of Mount Elizabeth Novena.
Published June 09, 2012
New $2b hospital boasts super VIP suites
The all-single-room flagship Mount Elizabeth Novena has the feel of a luxury five-star hotel, and houses 254 medical suites
By Nisha Ramchandani
A PENTHOUSE-LEVEL, super VIP suite complete with a living room and roof terrace.
Going by the description, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for the top floor of a luxury five-star hotel or a trendy residential development, but the Chairman's suite is one of three super VIP suites at Parkway Pantai's new $2 billion Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital.
"It has a very luxurious feel. At the same time, the caregiver is able to be stationed there and help with recovery," said Tham Tuck Cheong, managing partner at Consultants Incorporated Architects + Planners (CIAP).
Architectural firms HOK and CIAP, both of which specialise in healthcare, worked on the project.
Aside from the super VIP suites - aptly dubbed the Chairman, Presidential and Royal suites - the all-single-room flagship hospital offers eight VIP rooms, 37 deluxe rooms and 206 single rooms. Fees for the rooms are still being finalised.
Mount Elizabeth Novena also features 254 medical suites, of which over 80 per cent were put up for sale and have been taken up by over 170 specialists. Parkway Pantai is retaining the remaining suites for its own use.
To make patient rooms more patient-friendly, rooms are angled or canted, with the bathroom tucked in a corner, allowing nurses to keep an eye on the patient from the corridor and cutting down on the distance between the bed and toilet to prevent falls. The layout of the room also creates more space for family members so they can spend time with the patient.
Patient rooms are developed with everything in the same place, as opposed to mirror images as they typically are, to reduce medical errors.
Another feature of the hospital is the connectivity between the specialists' medical suites and the in-patient wards.
As far as possible, the different levels of specialties of the doctors' medical suites are aligned with the corresponding patient wards and diagnostic rooms to ensure better connectivity.
"Having the physicians so close and so accessible - (the absence of which) was a common complaint in other facilities - works very well for us," said Lee Lian Hai, group vice-president (group project and construction management) of Parkway Pantai.
Parkway Pantai, a wholly owned subsidiary of IHH Healthcare, which in turn is owned by Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional, has three other hospitals in Singapore - Gleneagles Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital and Parkway East Hospital.
The 14-storey complex, which could open its doors by end-June, received its temporary occupation permit (TOP) from the Building & Construction Authority (BCA) on April 23. It is the first greenfield private hospital built here in recent years.
Construction took 23 months in total, while the norm for such a project would be about 30 months, Mr Lee said.
"The direction we got for design was (Parkway) wanted it to be high-technology but (with) the warmth of hospitality. The idea was a five- or six-star hotel feel so it's warm and inviting," said William Roger, HOK's director of healthcare design.
In terms of medical features, Mount Elizabeth Novena has en-suite day surgery rooms and 13 operating theatres (OTs), including hybrid ones which allow imaging equipment inside the OT.
It will also have a paperless documentation system and cutting-edge diagnostic imaging tools such as the Biograph MMR, which can do a PET scan and MRI in one sitting. Softer features, in the form of lush greenery, ambient lighting in the ICUs and new equipment which improve processes, aim at making the hospital both patient and staff-centric.
The hospital, which covers some 73,797 square metres in gross floor area (GFA), was recently awarded the Green Mark Platinum Award by the BCA for its environmentally friendly initiatives, for which it was also granted a 2 per cent GFA bonus.
Smart features include water management systems to achieve savings of 30 per cent, an air-handling system for optimal cooling in the OTs and ICUs, solar panels as well as noise-reducing materials.
One of the biggest challenges in constructing Parkway's new flagship was the site of the hospital, which was small and triangular in size, with one curved side, the architects said.
"We only had access to the hospital off that one curved side - Irrawaddy Road. One thing we had benefiting us was that the site was sloped. The slope site permitted us to create multiple entry points," said Mr Roger. "A sloped site for a hospital is good because we can get access to multiple parts of the building ... (so) the patients, staff, the materials (are) able to get to the hospital in an orderly way."
Another challenge was constructing the hospital next to an MRT line, with the vibration from the trains.
A lot of thought and planning has gone into the design and construction of the hospital, with materials needing to be selected carefully, ensuring they can be easily cleaned to prevent infections from breaking out.
In addition to heightened security in the form of security guards and cameras, the building has been strengthened to withstand any blasts.
"There is a structural separation between the carpark block and imaging department so (the accuracy of) equipment within the imaging department, which is very sensitive to vibrations, is maintained," Mr Tham said. "Designing a hospital is very different from designing any other building."
A total of 70 experts were involved in the planning of Mount Elizabeth Novena.