Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital’s new Healing Tower offers latest in technology
For all the hardships and uncertainty COVID-19 brought to the medical sector over the past two years, the leaders at Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital agree that there was at least one silver lining to the pandemic — the innovative technology that developed because of it.
During the pandemic, patients were able to meet with their doctors virtually and patients in the hospital were able to stay connected with their family online which was especially important when visitors were unable to be with their loved one in the hospital. Technological advances also help the hospital staff better track patient data through real time data monitoring which helps in a quicker recovery. Other advancements help the patient and staff communicate faster.
And all this was put on the fast track during the pandemic.
“The things that we me might have been pondering or dreaming about, we pushed forward faster and invested the resources faster to get them here,” said Nathan Way, Director of Acute Care Services at Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital.
During a tour for media representatives from around Montgomery County Wednesday morning, Way showed off a “hospital room of the future” in the hospital’s new Healing Tower project. The multi-story Healing Tower opened in February.
The hospital bedside tables now have charging ports and each table is equipped with an iPad where the patient can keep up with their labs and doctor’s note, communicate with the hospital staff, entertain themselves during their stay or order their meals from food services. There’s also Alexa echo dot devices for patient convenience. Way said patients will soon be able to call for a nurse or notify the staff of an emergency via the echo dot.
“We’ve been talking about the iPad project for a while but it went into rapid overdrive during the pandemic,” he said.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of innovative technology that is taking patient care into the future.
The opening of the Healing Tower is a part of a $250 million expansion project at the hospital. The master-planned campus expansion comes less than five years after the hospital’s initial opening which took place in 2017 at the corner of Interstate 45 and Texas 242.
This expansion is in direct response to the significantly increased health care needs of a rapidly growing population in Montgomery County, according to a statement from the hospital.
“We are very excited about the ways this hospital-of-the-future expansion will impact the lives of others. It is our privilege to provide the high level of care that our residents of north Houston expect and deserve,” said Debra Sukin, CEO of Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital and regional senior vice president, Houston Methodist. “In addition to providing an exceptional patient experience, the hospital provides natural light, open seating areas for guests and expanded dining options to make one’s stay as welcoming and comfortable as possible. We are proud to be the only health care provider in The Woodlands offering access to all buildings on our growing medical campus through a climate-controlled skybridge system.”
Krystle Riley, Director of Operations at the hospital, said this expansion took the hospital from 187 beds to 293 beds as a part of a master-plan for the campus.
While speaking about the “Extended Arms of Christ” mosaic art piece on the first floor of the Healing Tower, Sukin said “I couldn’t be more proud to stand here and see this project come to fruition.”
More features include an expanded emergency department, more than doubling the previous capacity from 18 to 46 rooms to provide high-quality emergency care when patients need it most.
There is also increased diagnostic imaging, including CT scans strategically placed for precise and seamless patient imaging through each stage of care — from the operating room to recovery or the Intensive Care Unit, nine additional operating rooms for a total of 24, including two hybrid rooms for specialized vascular and endovascular procedures and dedicated robotic technology campus-wide for advanced surgical procedures including four DaVinci Xi surgical systems, a ROSA orthopedic robotic system and a Corindus vascular robotic system.
The 24 operating rooms are divided into specialty pods all on the same floor that is more than a football field in length from one end to the other. A control room in the center, allows virtual patient monitoring and enhanced communication among the staff on the surgical floor.
On Wednesday, vascular surgeon Dr. Thomas Loh spoke to the group about the benefits of having a hybrid operating room in terms of treating a patient with a pulmonary embolism or blood clot in the lung.
He explained this condition was often previously fatal for a patient up until recent technology. Now with the combination of skilled staff and innovation, the person can be treated in 30 to 40 minutes.
“The patient is usually released in 36 hours. We’re talking hours now and not days. This is a major paradigm shift in treating PE,” he said.
The group also toured a robotic-assisted operating room and met urologist Dr. Steven Sukin, the first surgeon and urologist in the North Houston area to perform robotic surgery on the DaVinci robot.
He’s now the Director of the Robotics program at the hospital with more than 11 years experience of performing robotic surgery.
He said the benefit of robotic surgery for the patient is the incisions are smaller which results in faster patient recovery time. Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Eric Price also demonstrated a knee replacement using the ROSA technology. He said the main benefit to using ROSA is the accuracy while performing surgery.
On Wednesday morning, Debra Sukin announced that the hospital just this week was notified it had received accreditation as a Robotics Centers of Excellence.
The group also toured the Women’s Health floor, lactation area, third-floor commons, bariatric surgery center and an acute-care floor.
Just because the Healing Tower is now open, don’t expect the cranes to come to a halt yet on the campus.
Riley said on Monday the campus opened an Outpatient Woundcare Clinic in the second medical office building and the Houston Methodist system is also expanding into the Kingwood area.
The campus is continuing to add to the imaging center as well.
“There is still a lot going on,” Riley said.
Visit https://www.houstonmethodist.org/locations/the-woodlands/ for more about the hospital.
shernandez@hcnonline.com
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