Physicians’ Gift Propels Project
The state-of-the-art Cooperman family pavilion will house a new NICU, nursing units and other outpatient testing areas.
Saint Barnabas Medical Center has embarked on the most ambitious construction project in two decades. The 270,000-square-foot, five-story Cooperman Family Pavilion, set to open in fall 2017, is the cornerstone of the campus transformation. A group of physicians who will be working in the space are playing a big role in funding the project.
American Anesthesiology of New Jersey (AAN J), an affiliate of MEDNAX, has pledged a total of $2 million (over five years) to help with the construction of the space and the improvement of electronic health records technology. The physicians of AANJ are personally donating half the sum, and AANJ will provide the other half.
“We are grateful to have the physicians of AANJ, along with all the anesthesiologists at the medical center, behind this both personally and professionally,” says Mehrdad Rafizadeh, M.D., MEDNA X corporate medical director, chairman of Anesthesiology at Saint Barnabas Medical Center and president of the Medical Staff. “This is our future, and it will impact us for the next 20 to 25 years.”
The result will be a state-of-the-art facility. The Cooperman Family Pavilion will be home to a world-class Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU ), new nursing units and a host of state-of-the-art, expansive outpatient testing areas. There is also the light-filled, two-story Eric F. and Lore Ross Lobby and a new parking garage, which has already been completed.
Through collaboration with Saint Barnabas caregivers, this project is drawing on the latest ideas in evidence-based hospital design. The pavilion will be created with natural materials, soothing colors and abundant natural light, and it will provide the most advanced medical technology as well as spaces to promote privacy and healing.
Such evidence-based design reflects new thinking about how to create hospital environments that improve care, including from curb-free showers to prevent falls, acoustical materials to lessen noise and hybrid operating suites that let surgeons switch easily from minimally invasive procedures to so-called open procedures. Dr. Rafizadeh hopes that other health care providers follow AANJ’s lead. “We want this project to be an example to other physicians on our medical staff that they can do the same thing,” he says. “This gift is one way to continue our commitment to our hospital partner and demonstrate that we want to be here for a long time.”
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