Riddle Hospital opened a new patient pavilion with private rooms and new NICU
The renovations are part of a $327 million project to modernize the Media hospital’s campus.
Riddle Hospital on Monday opened a patient pavilion with new surgical suites, a neonatal intensive unit, and private rooms for patients, constructed as part of a $327 million project to modernize the Media hospital’s campus.
Patients were transferred into the new pavilion early Monday, including expectant parents and babies that were being treated in the hospital’s old NICU.
Officials at the Main Line Health system hospital have been planning renovations for about 10 years, said hospital president Shelly Buck.
Spaces like the facility’s private rooms and open, well-lit spaces are desirable in today’s health-care market, she noted.
“We hope it will attract more patients and more physicians and surgeons to want to practice here,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re able to serve the community, so that they don’t have to drive past us to go downtown.”
Riddle officials say maternity suites and the new NICU will help the hospital handle 1,800 births a year, more than a 50% increase from its previous capacity.
The new facility also has a special room for mothers to spend time with medically fragile babies who require treatment in the NICU.
Other features include 10 new operating rooms, and a new labor and delivery unit.
On the fifth floor of the pavilion, where private patient rooms are housed, staff will have the ability to limit airflow to prevent airborne infections. The space was designed with negative pressure rooms in which air from inside the room doesn’t expand into a hallway or common space, even once a door is opened.
Keeping up with hospital trends
In 2020, when raising funds for the renovations, Main Line Health said in a bond filing that the pavilion would reduce the hospital’s overall inpatient capacity by 19 beds, to 174. That tracked larger trends in the hospital industry, as more health systems shifted to offering more outpatient care, Buck said.
But now that the pavilion has been built, Riddle Hospital has a total of 186 patients beds, a loss of only seven beds from the hospital’s 2020 capacity.
Buck said the hospital believes the current capacity will “more than meet needs” for patients who require inpatient care.
Like many hospital systems, Main Line has recorded operating losses in recent years, with a loss of $114 million in the first nine months of this fiscal year, and $102 million in 12 months of fiscal year 2022.
Buck said the health system is hoping that its new facilities can mitigate some of its financial difficulties.
“This is a facility that people want today in health care,” she said.
Riddle will continue with the renovations on its campus, which include its intensive care unit, through summer 2024, officials said.