Meals “at Your request” - Johns Hopkins Children's Center
Meals “at Your request” - Johns Hopkins Children's Center
Meals “at Your request” - Johns Hopkins Children's Center
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hopkinschildren’s<br />
The <strong>Johns</strong> hopkins Children’s CenTer MAGAZine<br />
suMMer 2012<br />
Celebrating<br />
Bloomberg<br />
Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong><br />
The new hospital<br />
launches a new era<br />
in pediatric medicine<br />
at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
An Artful New World:<br />
A fritted façade and supersize<br />
rhinos and puffer fish<br />
__________________<br />
A Family-Friendly Hospital:<br />
All-private rooms and meals<br />
“At <strong>Your</strong> <strong>request”</strong>
Through a Child’s eyes<br />
On Stage for Others<br />
By Gavin Michel-Baird<br />
Gavin Michel-Baird is a third-grader<br />
who lives in Edgewood, Md. He<br />
introduced New York City Mayor<br />
and <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> alumnus Michael<br />
Bloomberg at the dedication of The<br />
Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> and Sheikh Zayed Tower<br />
at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital, where<br />
he shared the stage also with His<br />
Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan<br />
bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for<br />
whose grandfather the adult tower<br />
was named. Bloomberg and his<br />
sister, Marjorie Tiven, named the<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> for their mother.<br />
HOPKINS CHILDREN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
When they asked me if I would<br />
introduce Mr. (Michael) Bloomberg<br />
at the dedication of Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, I said “Yes.”<br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> has really helped me, ever since I was born. I wanted<br />
to help them so they could make other kids feel better, too.<br />
For my speech, I practiced and practiced. It was a little tiring.<br />
Stepping out finally onto that stage, with everyone looking at<br />
me, was embarrassing. But I have been in plays at school. In<br />
kindergarten I played the mouse king. So I knew I had to use a<br />
big voice and sort of make an entrance.<br />
After a while it was fun. Mr. Bloomberg was very nice. And<br />
so was the Sheikh (Zayed). After I cut the ribbon for the building,<br />
the Sheikh took the scissors from me. I think it worried<br />
him that they were very sharp.<br />
They had told me confetti was going to come out of a cannon<br />
and I really wanted to see it. But we were facing the audience and<br />
it shot out from behind us over our heads. Mr. Bloomberg later<br />
helped me gather all of it. Now, it’s in my closet at home.<br />
At the end of everything, there was food and a party, but I just<br />
wanted to go to Taco Bell. It’s my favorite. I have seen the new<br />
building. I really like the big puffer fish and their little faces. There is a TV<br />
studio there for kids, too. I liked watching shows and playing with Wii<br />
when I was in the hospital, which was for a long time.<br />
I wanted Ms. Lynn (Mattis), my nurse at <strong>Hopkins</strong>, to be my date at the<br />
dedication. But she had to be in the clinic that day. I love her. She takes<br />
care of me. And I like Dr. (Carmen) Cuffari, one of my doctors.<br />
I was born with a hole in my stomach. But now I can eat and there are<br />
no more (GI) tubes. I had those until I was 5. Thank you! n
�<br />
Celebrating our Centennial 1912-2012<br />
100 Years of Discovery, Innovation and Caring<br />
�<br />
Features<br />
6 realizing the Promise<br />
Will Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> change<br />
pediatric medicine?<br />
Mat edelson<br />
14 the art & architecture<br />
of Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong><br />
Fritted facades and supersize sculptures of<br />
an ostrich, puffer fish and rhinos?<br />
Gary Logan<br />
20 Flying High, Flying Low:<br />
A Photo Journal<br />
Through artworks, patients follow magical paths.<br />
Photography by Keith Weller<br />
summer 2012<br />
Places to play, like this “teen room,” are among patient- and family-friendly<br />
features of Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
dePartMeNts<br />
2 Director’s View<br />
from bath house to bloomberg<br />
3 <strong>Hopkins</strong> Scrapbook<br />
the day an era ended<br />
elaine Freeman & edith Nichols<br />
30 Inside Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
32 more space for a premier ed<br />
A family-friendly environment, too.<br />
34 niche cardiology services<br />
Designed with collaboration in mind.<br />
36 kids only imaging<br />
Pediatric radiology finds a home.<br />
37 a studio for cctv<br />
A modern venue for engaging patients.<br />
39 meals at your request<br />
A new culinary wind is blowing at the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
40 People & Philanthropy<br />
A Dedication for the Future<br />
Gary Logan & Wendell smith<br />
48 family matters<br />
Ask Parents and They Will Build It<br />
Gary Logan<br />
49 patient voices<br />
A Quieter, Homier Home<br />
rebecca Manning<br />
Summer 2012 1
The Director’s View<br />
From Bath House to Bloomberg<br />
George dover, M.d.<br />
director, <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
<strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />
Given Professor<br />
of Pediatrics<br />
2 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
In looking ahead at how<br />
pediatric medicine might<br />
change in our marvelous new building—The<br />
Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>—it’s<br />
constructive to look back to our origins, which surprisingly<br />
were in a tiny two-story building known<br />
as the “Bath House.” In 1896 baths were considered<br />
therapeutic, so a bath house was renovated for<br />
children, making it <strong>Hopkins</strong>’ very first building for<br />
children.<br />
At the time we had no full-time pediatric faculty,<br />
training or research program. But in 1903, Harriet<br />
Lane <strong>Johns</strong>ton willed funds for a hospital for<br />
invalid children, which resulted in the Harriet Lane<br />
Home opening in 1912 and the beginning of the<br />
first full-time academic department in pediatrics in<br />
this country. The melding of pediatric research and<br />
training with patient care followed and <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
became known for pioneering pediatric treatments.<br />
But by the late 1950s the Harriet Lane Home was<br />
outmoded and drawings were drafted for the Children’s<br />
Medical & Surgical <strong>Center</strong> (CMSC).<br />
Pediatric academic medicine at <strong>Hopkins</strong> thrived<br />
over the next half century, but like its predecessor<br />
the CMSC eventually outlived its space. Parents<br />
cited a lack of amenities and faculty inadequate<br />
research space. So, in 1998 plans ensued for a new<br />
building with a new challenge—how would we sustain<br />
the innovation that sustained the Harriet Lane<br />
Home and CMSC?<br />
We decided to remain independent but also part<br />
of this campus, which would allow us to do things<br />
in pediatrics a freestanding children’s hospital<br />
cannot do. We built in our capacity to do clinical<br />
trials, while knowing that what distinguishes us is<br />
not just how well we treat a particular disease but<br />
the people we attract and the innovations in pediatric<br />
medicine we develop. In the future we may have<br />
to look at preventing adult diseases as well as treating<br />
childhood diseases, which collaborative core<br />
labs, rather than single labs, will facilitate.<br />
Today we’re very grateful to all of our patients,<br />
families, staff and generous donors who collectively<br />
had a vision of what our new building should look<br />
like. Now we need to continue to set the standard<br />
for care by both attracting and teaching the very<br />
best and by adapting our research to the new realities.<br />
With your help, we know we can do that.<br />
Thank you. n<br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s is published<br />
by The <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> Office of<br />
Communications & Public Affairs<br />
901 S. Bond Street / Suite 550<br />
Baltimore, md 21231<br />
www.hopkinschildrens.org<br />
410-502-9428<br />
Kim Martin<br />
Director<br />
Gary Logan<br />
Editor<br />
Wendell Smith<br />
Assistant Editor & Senior Writer<br />
Julia McMillan, m.d.<br />
Peter Mogayzel, m.d.<br />
Cozumel Pruette, m.d.<br />
Medical Editors<br />
Mat Edelson<br />
Contributing Writer<br />
Max Boam<br />
Art Director<br />
Abby Ferretti<br />
Design<br />
Keith Weller, Kevin Webber<br />
Photography<br />
Naomi Ball<br />
Distribution<br />
Printed in the U.S.A.<br />
©The <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
University 2012<br />
Give us feedback<br />
Send letters to Gary Logan at<br />
the above address or e-mail:<br />
glogan@jhmi.edu.<br />
For more information<br />
To read more on the clinical services<br />
and programs covered in <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Children’s, visit hopkinschildrens.org.<br />
How you can help<br />
Call 410-516-4545<br />
Cover photo by Keith Weller
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Scrapbook<br />
The Day an era ended<br />
On the 100th anniversary of the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, a look back at the<br />
closing days of the old Harriet Lane Home and the deep sense of loss felt<br />
by pediatricians who had worked there.<br />
By elaine K. Freeman and edith Nichols<br />
To this day, John Littlefield remembers the<br />
surprise he felt in the fall of 1973 when<br />
he arrived from Boston to become director<br />
of Pediatrics and found a group of wistful<br />
colleagues awaiting him. After a full<br />
decade of updating its pediatric facilities,<br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> had just opened a new outpatient<br />
and emergency center for infants and children<br />
to replace the crumbling 62-year-old<br />
Harriet Lane Home where these pediatricians<br />
had worked. But instead of elation<br />
over their modernized quarters, the doctors<br />
were feeling nostalgia for what they were<br />
losing—the legendary Harriet Lane Home,<br />
scheduled for demolition in the spring.<br />
Indeed, the Harriet Lane Home had<br />
stood as a national icon. Named for its<br />
benefactress, the niece of former U.S. President<br />
James Buchanan who had married a<br />
Baltimorean, it had opened in 1912 as the<br />
first center for academic pediatrics in the<br />
United States. Offering specialized care for<br />
children and infants, as well as research and<br />
teaching, before pediatrics even existed at<br />
most hospitals, the historic facility inspired<br />
so much loyalty among pediatric residents<br />
who trained there that they referred to<br />
themselves as “Harriet Laners.”<br />
“The staff and even the trustees wanted<br />
some sort of commemoration,” Littlefield<br />
says, <strong>“at</strong> least a wake.”<br />
Littlefield, who’d been trained in internal<br />
medicine, not pediatrics, knew he<br />
had to show empathy. And so, he quickly<br />
organized an official goodbye. Turning to<br />
famed pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig,<br />
who’d begun working in the Harriet Lane<br />
Home in 1930, he asked her to put together<br />
a 45-minute farewell. That program, billed<br />
as the Final Meeting in the Harriet Lane<br />
Home Amphitheater, took place on March<br />
14, 1974, and was attended by more than<br />
100 pediatricians, house officers, staff, and<br />
trustees. Shivering in the unheated amphitheater,<br />
they sat on hard wooden seats<br />
that served as bleachers—transfixed as five<br />
pediatric giants recounted stories of life in<br />
Harriet Lane through the years. Today, the<br />
memories of people who were there that<br />
day, and a transcript of the proceedings<br />
that appeared in the January 1975 <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Medical Journal, paint a picture<br />
of an event that marked the end of an era.<br />
The physicians Taussig invited to speak<br />
had all been pioneers in their pediatric<br />
specialties: 82-year-old Hugh Josephs in<br />
hematology; neonatologist Alexander J.<br />
“Buck” Schaffer; Leo Kanner, recognized<br />
as the father of child psychiatry; medical<br />
geneticist Barton Childs; and Taussig her-<br />
COurTeSy ALAN mASON CHeSNey meDICAL ArCHIVeS<br />
Famed pediatric cardiologist<br />
Helen taussig put together<br />
the program and started<br />
things off at the Final Meeting<br />
in the Harriet Lane<br />
Home, on March 14, 1974.<br />
More than 100 nostalgic<br />
Harriet Laners turned out,<br />
shivering in the unheated<br />
amphitheater.<br />
Summer 2012 3
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Scrapbook<br />
the featured speakers at the<br />
Final Meeting were all pediatrics<br />
pioneers: Helen taussig,<br />
Hugh Josephs, “Buck” schaffer,<br />
Leo Kanner, and Barton Childs.<br />
self, a co-developer of the world-famous<br />
Blue Baby heart operation.<br />
“I remember being overwhelmed to<br />
hear some of my heroes speak, especially<br />
Buck Schaffer, who was Dr. Neonatologist<br />
to me,” recalls Alex Haller, pediatric<br />
surgeon-in-chief from 1964 to 1997. “I sat<br />
like a medical ‘bobby-soxer’ at the feet of<br />
my mentors.”<br />
David Valle, a serious amateur photographer<br />
who would go on to complete his<br />
residency at <strong>Hopkins</strong>, appreciated that<br />
something of a historical moment was<br />
happening. He drove up with his cameras<br />
from the NIH where he was working at<br />
the time. Photos he took that day illustrated<br />
the event’s transcript in The <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Medical Journal.<br />
“It was a chance to sit with my friends<br />
and mentors in a place that meant so<br />
much to me during my residency [in the<br />
1960s],” says John Neff, later medical director<br />
of Seattle Children’s Hospital. “I<br />
would not have missed the event. That<br />
very amphitheater had been filled every<br />
Saturday morning for pediatric grand<br />
rounds. It was a high point of the week. It<br />
was terrifying for me as an intern to present<br />
a case there. We were expected to be<br />
succinct and include all of the pertinent<br />
patient information without notes.”<br />
“Nostalgia,” postulates Neff, “is built<br />
around valuable and memorable experiences<br />
that can never be repeated.”<br />
4 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
my colleagues and I may have grumbled at times<br />
about small budgets, poor equipment, and shabby<br />
quarters, but we were grateful for the one magnificent<br />
gift which outweighed everything else—<br />
the opportunity to work unhampered.<br />
– LeO KANNer, m.D.<br />
For Larry Pakula, who’d been on the<br />
house staff starting in 1957, the setting<br />
also brought back the hours he’d spent<br />
right there being exposed to his professors’<br />
thinking as they debated and argued<br />
at grand rounds. “Then we’d all go on to<br />
the Doctors Dining Room for coffee. It<br />
was a great time,” Pakula says. But the<br />
Final Meeting “brought sadness that such<br />
intimacy was disappearing in medicine.”<br />
Taussig opened the program by introducing<br />
Hugh Josephs, who had interned<br />
under John Howland, the Harriet Lane<br />
Home’s chief from 1913 to 1927. What<br />
Josephs made clear were the changes that<br />
had occurred in 60 years in medicine itself.<br />
“Perhaps the most striking thing about<br />
the beginning,” he told the group, “was<br />
the lack of conveniences and equipment.<br />
There was no clinical laboratory to which<br />
one could send specimens for examination.<br />
Each intern did his own bacteriological<br />
work. Hematology consisted of a white<br />
count and, if indicated, a hemoglobin de-<br />
termination. Blood chemistry was about to<br />
be invented as a part of research.”<br />
Josephs described typical cases from<br />
those early days: “Diarrhea was rampant<br />
in the summer.” The successful understanding<br />
and treatment of this condition,<br />
he said, “was the first great contribution of<br />
the workers at the Harriet Lane.” Pneumonia<br />
was the disease of winter. “We had no<br />
drug for that. We would wrap the babies<br />
up and put them out in the cold where<br />
they generally did well.” In the fall, there<br />
was typhoid. “The city water was safe,<br />
but these children had been with their<br />
parents picking fruit in the country and<br />
drank country water. Congenital syphilis,<br />
we saw at any time. We could recognize<br />
that across a room in a crowd.” Conquering<br />
rickets, Josephs said, was the second<br />
great triumph of Harriet Lane, “and for<br />
that very reason, largely unknown to you,”<br />
he told those assembled.<br />
Next up was Schaffer. “I came here<br />
feeling rather joyous and happy,” he said
COurTeSy ALAN mASON CHeSNey meDICAL ArCHIVeS<br />
to the group. Sitting in this room filled<br />
with pleasant memories, but faced with<br />
the imminent demolition of the old Harriet<br />
Lane Home, “I now confess to feeling<br />
something more intense than nostalgia.”<br />
He noted that he had “lived right smack<br />
in this building for four full years,” working<br />
“in the wards every morning and in<br />
the dispensary every afternoon. I spent<br />
the noon hour almost every day in this<br />
very amphitheater taking part in the staff<br />
conferences led by my remarkable chiefs.<br />
And I slept here, that is, until the alarm<br />
bell rang. We even took all of our exercise<br />
right here. The lone tennis court was right<br />
next to the HLH.”<br />
When 80-year-old Leo Kanner rose to<br />
speak, his reminiscences of his years as a<br />
Harriet Lane faculty member from 1931<br />
to 1959 were emotional.<br />
“I have seen palatial hospitals compared<br />
to which the Harriet Lane was a dump,”<br />
Kanner said. “I have lectured and listened<br />
in resplendent modern halls compared to<br />
which the one at the Harriet Lane is the<br />
poor replica of a medieval contraption.<br />
Why is it, then, that in such surroundings<br />
I and many others thrilled at the<br />
thought of working at the <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Hospital and look back to our years there<br />
with unadulterated affection? ... My colleagues<br />
and I … may have grumbled at<br />
times about small budgets, poor equipment,<br />
and shabby quarters, but we were<br />
Harriet Lane Home<br />
grateful for the one magnificent gift which<br />
outweighed everything else—the opportunity<br />
to work unhampered, to develop and<br />
pursue our curiosities, to test our theories,<br />
and at all times to be true to ourselves.”<br />
Among the speakers, 58-year-old Barton<br />
Childs represented youth, but even he<br />
waxed nostalgic. “I’m delighted that we<br />
are using this room,” he said. “We’d have<br />
meetings here every day, and it was a place<br />
where you could be sure that you would<br />
see your friends and colleagues repeatedly.<br />
The only other place where that happened<br />
was in front of the only elevator in the<br />
building. And it was slow.”<br />
Did the Final Meeting achieve the effect<br />
Littlefield had hoped for? Childs’ closing<br />
remarks addressed that point: “I think<br />
it’s wonderful that we had this meeting,<br />
and I think it is a splendid thing that Dr.<br />
Littlefield proposed it. Not all new department<br />
chairmen would have the sensitivity<br />
to think about the feelings of people who<br />
had been in such a place, and I’m not sure<br />
that all new department heads would have<br />
had the self-assurance to be willing to sit<br />
around and listen to stories of the feats of<br />
the giants who preceded him.”<br />
“It was the right way to go,” Littlefield<br />
admits today. “A good opening gun for a<br />
new era.” n<br />
This article first appeared in <strong>Hopkins</strong> Medicine<br />
(Winter 2012).<br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Scrapbook<br />
“ Harriet Laners”<br />
Forever<br />
The Harriet Lane Home was<br />
razed in 1974, but its name<br />
and what it represents in service<br />
and teaching have been<br />
preserved, insists Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> Director George<br />
Dover: “The Harriet Lane<br />
Clinic, open and running for<br />
100 years, is still serving the<br />
children of East Baltimore.<br />
Our training program always<br />
has been called the Harriet<br />
Lane Pediatric Residency Program,<br />
and its graduates will<br />
always be ‘Harriet Laners.’”<br />
The residents also continue<br />
to update the famed Harriet<br />
Lane Handbook, now available<br />
not just in print, not just<br />
online, but in a searchable<br />
“unbound” version.<br />
And this past spring, when<br />
the Children’s <strong>Center</strong> moved<br />
from the Children’s Medical<br />
and Surgical <strong>Center</strong> to the<br />
new Charlotte R. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, Dover’s<br />
exhibit of the history of Pediatrics<br />
at <strong>Hopkins</strong>, starting<br />
with the Harriet Lane Home,<br />
moved with him—along with<br />
the copper clad doors from<br />
the old, slow elevators. n<br />
Summer 2012 5
ealizing the<br />
Promise<br />
by Mat Edelson<br />
6 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
On the evening of April 12th, the Mayor of New York City stood before more than<br />
1,400 dignitaries, donors, and doctors. They had all gathered for the dedication of<br />
The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, and His Honor, Charlotte’s son,<br />
Michael Bloomberg, was in fine form. In tones both hopeful and bar-setting, Bloomberg spoke<br />
of the promise of the impressive new 12-story edifice. “If this center will bring the youngest<br />
and most vulnerable patients the kind of care and comfort that they need; if it will increase<br />
the knowledge and experience of the greatest doctors and teachers; if it will inspire other<br />
institutions to do more and do better,” said Bloomberg, “then we all will be happy.” So<br />
what will it take to make all those ‘ifs’ go away? And how far can a new Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
take <strong>Hopkins</strong> down that path?<br />
the Charlotte r. Bloomberg<br />
<strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> and, at left,<br />
neighboring sheikh Zayed<br />
tower.<br />
Summer 2012 7
8 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
OnSiDER wHAT may eventually be<br />
called, simply, “The Choice.” When<br />
the history of this clinical building is<br />
written in a few generations, of all the<br />
decisions that will have woven its hopefully<br />
successful tale, perhaps none will have been<br />
more critical than the judgment to integrate<br />
the new children’s hospital into the<br />
existing East Baltimore campus.<br />
The choice of whether to go freestanding<br />
or remain physically part of<br />
the medical community was a matter<br />
of lengthy debate. According<br />
to Children’s <strong>Center</strong> Director<br />
George Dover, several off-campus<br />
sites were on the table, including<br />
a potential “Super <strong>Center</strong>” that would have<br />
combined the institutional knowledge and<br />
experience of both <strong>Hopkins</strong> and the University<br />
of Maryland in a central downtown<br />
location.<br />
Dover well understood the allure and<br />
prestige of a move to a freestanding structure.<br />
He notes that many of the country’s<br />
finest care centers for children have<br />
stand-alone status, including Children’s<br />
Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), D.C.’s<br />
Children’s National Medical <strong>Center</strong>, and<br />
Wilmington’s (DE) Nemours/DuPont<br />
Hospital for Children.<br />
Dover could have pushed in that direction,<br />
but feared that achieving breakaway<br />
status would negatively impact the kind of<br />
visionary medicine he felt bore the <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
stamp. In Dover’s mind, it came down<br />
to a single priority: Be the best, or be the<br />
biggest. From that vantage point, the call<br />
practically made itself. “We never designed<br />
this place to be the biggest,” says Dover. “In<br />
fact, the number of beds in this building is<br />
The fact that we stayed<br />
in this environment is the<br />
major thing that will allow<br />
us to innovate. Sometimes<br />
it’s not what you do that’s<br />
important, but what you<br />
don’t do.<br />
– GEORGE DOvER, M.D.<br />
smaller than D.C. Children’s, CHOP, and<br />
DuPont, our major competitors. We didn’t<br />
even try to get where they were.”<br />
Dover says limiting size directly affects<br />
quality of care, both now and in the future.<br />
Pushing up the bed count strictly to pump<br />
up the volume of patients could, in Dover’s<br />
opinion, fundamentally alter the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>’s century-old mission. “If we hired<br />
faculty to serve those additional beds, and<br />
they were working 100 percent of the time,<br />
clinically, they wouldn’t be innovating,<br />
they’d just be keeping up with the clinical<br />
demands,” Dover says. “We still want to<br />
hire physicians who can do both research<br />
and clinical work, but if we grow too big,<br />
our faculty won’t have the time to do both.”<br />
To Dover, freestanding status would<br />
have limited the fertile ground for seeding<br />
such breakthroughs, the research equivalent<br />
of moving from a beautiful botanical garden<br />
to a rooftop herbal planter. Dover cites<br />
the thoughts of the last Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
director who opened a new hospital, Robert<br />
Cooke. In 1964 Cooke, in his dedication<br />
speech, worried that moving into the larger<br />
CMSC could trigger rapid growth, create<br />
silos, and weaken pediatrics’ long-standing<br />
reputation for collegiality with their adult<br />
medicine counterparts. “(Cooke said) that<br />
the culture depended upon people being<br />
close to each other, bumping into each<br />
other,” to create and nurture ideas, says<br />
Dover. “That without this closeness, the<br />
‘aura’ around pediatrics could be threatened.”<br />
That concern resonated a halfcentury<br />
later as Dover contemplated the<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>’s path. He decided to<br />
stay on the road well traveled.<br />
“The most important structural thing<br />
that will allow us to continue to innovate is<br />
being connected to the rest of the hospital,”<br />
he says. “Those eight stories that bridge the<br />
children’s tower and the adult tower; the<br />
fact we’re sitting on the same parcel as the<br />
Dome, across the street from the School of<br />
Public Health, down the block from the<br />
basic sciences and the School of Medicine,<br />
across the street from the new Armstrong<br />
Education building, and the fact that we<br />
stayed in this environment is the major<br />
thing that will allow us to innovate. Sometimes<br />
it’s not what you do that’s important,<br />
but what you don’t do.”
This continuing connection and sharing<br />
with adult medicine can be seen literally at<br />
the new hospital’s front door, where the Pediatric<br />
and Adult Emergency Departments<br />
stand side-by-side. But there’s more than<br />
symbolism at work here; there’s a direct<br />
benefit to pediatric emergency cases.<br />
“We put CT scanners, MRIs, and<br />
trauma bays between the Adult ED and<br />
the pediatric unit,” says Dover. “We don’t<br />
have enough patients coming solely to the<br />
pediatric unit to justify that, but when you<br />
combine the adult patients and pediatric patients<br />
it makes sense. So we can actually take<br />
some of the present technology and bring it<br />
closer to the bedside because we’re willing<br />
to share it with our adult colleagues.”<br />
The structure also offers a unification<br />
of sorts, which could well amp-up synergies<br />
between pediatric specialties. Between<br />
the modern David M. Rubenstein Child<br />
Health Building, opened in 2006, and the<br />
bridge-connected Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>, nearly all of the pediatric clinical<br />
services have been joined together, or as<br />
Dover puts it, consolidated in a more focused<br />
fashion.<br />
“When you decide to build a building<br />
across the street exclusively for pediatric<br />
outpatients (Rubenstein), when you decide<br />
to build a tower exclusively for pedi-<br />
This environment is so stimulating, so rich, it feels so freeing.<br />
– patrice brylske, director of child life<br />
atric inpatients, one of the things you do is<br />
bring the pediatric community even closer<br />
together,” Dover says. “Giving a sense of<br />
identity to pediatrics which will attract all<br />
these wonderful people into our building<br />
is a great idea, and because we’re so close<br />
to the adult side, we’re not separating ourselves.<br />
Once we made that choice, we began<br />
to see the opportunity to do some remarkable<br />
things.”<br />
In 2001, just as plans for the new Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> were in their embryonic<br />
stages, the Institute of Medicine laid down<br />
a formidable gauntlet. Their report entitled:<br />
Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health<br />
System for the 20th Century, didn’t mince<br />
words. It condemned American medicine<br />
for being unresponsive to patient needs, uncoordinated<br />
in its application of care, and<br />
unnecessarily unsafe.<br />
The IOM’s report challenged institutions<br />
to improve in six areas and created<br />
a new buzzword for hospital administrators<br />
and faculty: Patient-<strong>Center</strong>ed Care, or<br />
as the IOM put it, “providing care that is<br />
respectful of and responsive to individual<br />
patient preferences, needs, and values, and<br />
ensuring that patient values guide all clinical<br />
decisions.”<br />
To say that the phrase—adapted to<br />
the more universal “Patient- and Family-<br />
<strong>Center</strong>ed Care”—has become the single<br />
guiding principle of the design and function<br />
of the new Children’s <strong>Center</strong> would<br />
be neither understatement nor hyperbole.<br />
There’s a microeconomics term called “The<br />
Second-Mover Advantage,” which may<br />
best explain where the Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> stands as it opens its doors.<br />
Though <strong>Hopkins</strong> never claimed to be the<br />
first institution to practice patient- and<br />
family-centered care, they’ve used their<br />
“second-mover advantage” to learn from<br />
others’ successes (and mistakes) in the<br />
field. Pediatric faculty, staff, and administrators<br />
made numerous trips to facilities<br />
across the country, gleaning a multitude<br />
of ideas and creating a master “wish-list”<br />
of patient-centered initiatives.<br />
The result at this moment may well be<br />
the gold standard of patient-and familycentered<br />
care. Beautiful? Yes, so far as that<br />
term can apply to any structure made of<br />
concrete, steel, and glass. Lots and lots and<br />
lots of light-giving glass. But what’s most<br />
impressive, from its outer skin to its inner<br />
wiring, is how form and function combine<br />
to create a third, far more powerful<br />
element: Opportunity.<br />
It’s impossible to discuss the new<br />
Summer 2012 9
The CCSr is going to<br />
welcome the family in.<br />
It’s what we’ve always<br />
wanted to do, but in<br />
the past it wasn’t ideal<br />
because you had to<br />
have somebody else<br />
watch your patient<br />
while you got the<br />
parent.<br />
– CHrISTy rICHTer, r.N.<br />
building with faculty and not have words<br />
such as “opportunity” and “promise” pepper<br />
their conversation. To a person, they<br />
see the structure through their professional<br />
prism and glimpse new ways of healing.<br />
Call it the potential beyond the amenity,<br />
but it’s everywhere one looks. For Child<br />
Life Director Patrice Brylske, those playful,<br />
oversized sculptures, the hundreds of<br />
pieces of fascinating art that dot the walls,<br />
the colorful playrooms on each floor, are<br />
more than just a delightful aesthetic; each is<br />
a potential conversation starter with a child,<br />
an entree for building trust and taking fear<br />
out of the hospital experience, which leads<br />
to better healing.<br />
“The old building restricted a lot of the<br />
lovely things we wanted to do for patients<br />
and families, but this environment is so<br />
stimulating, so rich, it feels so freeing,” says<br />
Brylske. “Now we have to challenge ourselves<br />
to use what’s in this beautiful building<br />
to support our work.”<br />
Part of her vision involves using the<br />
Great Room—a two story gym-size facility<br />
on the 11th and 12th floors—and other<br />
open spaces to expand Child Life’s creative<br />
arts program. “We have such diverse space<br />
now that we can accommodate a menagerie<br />
of artists, from music and art to dance,<br />
poetry and drama, elements that we didn’t<br />
have the space for before, to have that quality<br />
interaction with patients and families.”<br />
Brylske also mentions the private rooms<br />
that are the standard accommodations as<br />
being of great benefit to engaging children<br />
in play, especially those who aren’t mobile.<br />
The 205 private rooms are cited time and<br />
10 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
Christy richter, r.N., with Clinical Customer service representative Keya Keys.<br />
again by staff as perhaps the key central element<br />
in improving all aspects of patient<br />
care. Many are quick to point out the<br />
family-friendly details such as on-demand<br />
room service, family lounges with microwave<br />
ovens and overnight beds. Pleasing<br />
amenities to be sure, but purposeful as well;<br />
keeping families on-site longer and close to<br />
their loved ones has numerous ancillary<br />
benefits.<br />
Sally Radovick, Director of Pediatric Endocrinology,<br />
sees the private rooms as offering<br />
the ideal educational space for parents<br />
who suddenly have to cope with a child’s<br />
life-changing illness. She points to children<br />
admitted because of life-threatening diabetic<br />
ketoacidosis, often the first sign that<br />
they have Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.<br />
“An important aspect, during the acute<br />
phase, is to begin teaching (chronic disease<br />
management),” says Radovick. “Learning<br />
about insulin dosing, what type I diabetes<br />
is, nutritional support…it’s critical for this<br />
initiation of self-care for the chronic state.<br />
Now, parents can stay with their child in a<br />
single room round the clock, and they can<br />
learn from the nursing staff and diabetes educators<br />
how to take care of this child, how<br />
to give the insulin injection, and participate<br />
in carbohydrate counting each meal, which<br />
was potentially more difficult to do in a<br />
room with two or more children.”<br />
Director of Pediatric Nephrology Barbara<br />
Fivush also credits the private rooms<br />
for fostering better staff-family/patient conversations.<br />
In just the short time the hospital<br />
has been open—the official start date<br />
was May 1st—Fivush says she can see and<br />
hear the change.<br />
“Our service has many chronically-
impaired patients with complicated emotional<br />
problems…the conversations can<br />
get pretty detailed, and I think we felt uncomfortable<br />
(in multi-family rooms) talking<br />
about their care,” Fivush says. “Now<br />
we have the privacy to really get to spend<br />
time with our families, which promotes the<br />
ability to communicate better because you<br />
don’t have to be concerned about who is<br />
listening and who else is in the room.”<br />
She adds, “I’ve just been on service in the<br />
new hospital this week, but I’m very impressed<br />
with the conversations we’re having,<br />
about non-adherence, why they got<br />
kidney failure from a certain drug, why that<br />
drug was given to them in the first place…<br />
so many topics that are not naturally easy<br />
to discuss unless the environment is open<br />
to that.”<br />
Private rooms also increase patient safety,<br />
a key element of the IOM’s pivotal report.<br />
“With private rooms, you don’t worry<br />
about cross-infection from roommates,”<br />
says pediatric pulmonologist Beryl Rosenstein,<br />
former long-time vice president for<br />
Medical Affairs at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital.<br />
In the old building, “we had to move patients<br />
around because of infection control<br />
issues. Now it’s simple; every patient is in<br />
their own little cocoon.”<br />
And many systems have been built<br />
around preserving the sanctity and safety of<br />
that little cocoon. Marlene Miller, director<br />
of the Division of Quality and Safety, notes<br />
that drug delivery has been completely revamped<br />
from stem to stern. The pediatric<br />
pharmacy is five times larger than its predecessor,<br />
there are separate rooms with separate<br />
pass-throughs for IV meds, and quiet<br />
space for the pharmacists to do their dosage<br />
calculations without being disrupted.<br />
Also, the medication distribution system<br />
has been redesigned with more frequent<br />
delivery of meds, more frequent removal of<br />
the discontinued meds, and bedside delivery<br />
of medication so there’s less distraction<br />
for the nurse.<br />
“She’s not in a med room with five other<br />
nurses all getting meds for their patients,”<br />
says Miller. “Her patient’s meds are right<br />
by the bedside.”<br />
Keeping the nurse with their patients,<br />
especially those who are critically ill, is a<br />
win-win result of another amenity, Clinical<br />
Customer Service Representatives (CCSR).<br />
In the past, PICU and NICU nurses would<br />
often be called away from their patients to<br />
meet families and instruct them on proper<br />
safety protocols before entering the rooms.<br />
Now, they can stay by the bedside, as the<br />
CCSR staff greet families at the entrance<br />
to each unit and prep them for their visit.<br />
“The CCSR is going to welcome the<br />
family in, show them how to wash their<br />
hands, and walk them down to the patient<br />
room,” says NICU nurse Christy Richter.<br />
“It’s what we’ve always wanted to do, but<br />
in the past it wasn’t ideal; you had to have<br />
somebody else watch your patient while<br />
you got the parent. That wasn’t really welcoming<br />
for anyone. But now their anxiety<br />
level will already be lower when they enter<br />
the room. And their hands will already be<br />
washed so we can get right to ‘here’s what’s<br />
going on with your baby.’ The continuity<br />
is just going to be better.”<br />
Continuity. Safety. Quality of care, notably<br />
Patient- and Family-<strong>Center</strong>ed Care.<br />
Modern medicine lives by these buzzwords;<br />
together they form the mantra by<br />
which the new Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> will attempt to create a standard<br />
of care that would make the IOM proud.<br />
That’s as of today. But what about medicine<br />
10, 20, 50 years from now? Will the<br />
new Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> still be<br />
going strong when our children have children,<br />
or will time have passed it by? Put<br />
another way, will the faculty and staff<br />
have made their mark on medicine<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
much as they did in the CMSC<br />
and Harriet Lane? Or could<br />
this next era for the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> become a grand experiment<br />
that ultimately yields<br />
disappointing results? If history<br />
is any indication, it’s<br />
hard to imagine the latter,<br />
especially given the thousands<br />
of planning hours<br />
put into envisioning the future<br />
of pediatric medicine.<br />
Still, playing clairvoyant is a<br />
daunting task.<br />
“You go into it with a lot<br />
of humility and insecurity,<br />
really, about where the world<br />
you go into it with<br />
a lot of humility and<br />
insecurity, really,<br />
about where the<br />
world is going, but<br />
you learn lessons for<br />
the future from the<br />
lessons from past<br />
experiences.<br />
– TED CHAMBERS,<br />
PEDiATRiCS<br />
ADMiniSTRATOR<br />
Summer 2012 11
With a live video feed from the Or, the upgraded echocardiography suite gives pediatric cardiologists like W. reid thompson, left,<br />
and Phil spevak the advantage of interpreting images for surgeons in real time.<br />
is going, but you learn lessons for the future<br />
from the lessons from past experiences,”<br />
admits veteran pediatrics administrator<br />
Ted Chambers. “One of the advantages<br />
Dr. Dover and I have is that we’ve been<br />
here for some time, so we’ve built up experiences<br />
that lead you to how you would<br />
shape the building and the future of the<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.”<br />
Indeed, a consulting group hired early in<br />
the process strongly suggested that <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
build a far smaller inpatient children’s<br />
hospital than what Dover and Chambers<br />
eventually delivered. The consultants<br />
based their recommendation on national<br />
data which showed pediatricians across the<br />
country were doing a better job at keeping<br />
kids from getting sick, and inpatient<br />
admissions were dropping.<br />
They thought they were seeing the big<br />
picture; Dover and Chambers thought<br />
otherwise. Pediatric cases, especially<br />
chronic ones, were getting more complicated.<br />
Numerous specialists and services<br />
were required, often beyond the scope and<br />
resources of most pediatric centers, but<br />
not <strong>Hopkins</strong>. So, by their thinking, while<br />
many centers will be seeing fewer inpatients<br />
in the years to come, Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> will thrive by offering top-notch<br />
12 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
care to the most complex of cases.<br />
Physically that means having a building<br />
with the flexibility to handle those cases<br />
now and in the future. Expanded dedicated<br />
pediatric OR suites, designed to fit<br />
the specific needs of subspecialties including<br />
neurosurgery and cardiology, are both<br />
state-of-the-current-art and adaptable to<br />
technology that at least has been glimpsed<br />
on the horizon.<br />
This lab is really set<br />
up with good hardware<br />
and software<br />
that has the capacity<br />
of seeing an image<br />
anywhere, at any<br />
time, from anyone.<br />
– PHiL SPEvAk, M.D.<br />
“We’re going to be able to integrate robots<br />
into the system; the rooms are made to<br />
accommodate those kind of advances,” says<br />
neurosurgeon Ben Carson. “The only reason<br />
we don’t use robots right now in neurosurgery<br />
is they’re not quite fine enough.<br />
But once they become fine enough and<br />
delicate enough, the kinds of things we’ll<br />
be able to do will be mind boggling.”<br />
Even the air that’s breathed throughout<br />
the hospital has the future in the mind.<br />
“The whole building is HEPA (high-efficiency<br />
particulate air) filtered. The air is<br />
cleaned in a way we never had in the old<br />
building,” says Chambers. Such filtering<br />
not only lets immune-compromised children<br />
stay safer, but it’s vital to emerging<br />
therapies.<br />
“The way the air handling system works,<br />
you can administer a drug in a certain<br />
room and it doesn’t leak out into the corridor<br />
or other areas,” Chambers says. “With<br />
gene transplantation, one of the lessons<br />
we learned is we needed a very special air<br />
handling system to administer the gene,<br />
because you didn’t want these genes just<br />
floating around anywhere.”<br />
There’s little doubt that as technology<br />
evolves, so too will the concept of the traditional<br />
children’s hospital. Expertise that<br />
is regionally based is on the verge of having<br />
a national and global reach, and Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> is set up for that<br />
emerging world of telemedicine. Cardiologist<br />
Philip Spevak has built a NASA-esque<br />
imaging command center that coordinates<br />
numerous imaging modalities both in-
house and to satellite sites to come.<br />
“This lab is really set up with good hardware<br />
and software that has the capacity of<br />
seeing an image anywhere, at any time,<br />
from anyone,” says Spevak. “That’s important<br />
in clinical care because expertise varies<br />
from center to center and pediatric cardiology<br />
program to program, and you even<br />
have expertise here in say, congenital heart<br />
cardiac imaging. So we can be an expert<br />
consultation service (to other centers) in a<br />
minute. We’re also using our center to train<br />
technologists at other hospitals.”<br />
Ben Carson sees a similar technological<br />
outreach from OR to overseas coming<br />
down the road: “The new operating<br />
rooms are very technologically advanced.<br />
I did nine cases last week, and to be able<br />
to record what you’re doing, with just a<br />
simple maneuver, have it sent to a central<br />
source where you can then upload it to your<br />
computer in your office, make slides, do<br />
various presentations, makes access to this<br />
information to other people much greater,<br />
so now it’s not just what you’re learning,<br />
it’s what you’re able to transmit to others…<br />
the fact that we’ll be able to communicate<br />
with medical centers in Nigeria, in Israel,<br />
in Dublin, in South America, in New Zealand,<br />
this is the wave of the future.”<br />
Guaranteeing that future will take equal<br />
parts money and new faculty, and the new<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> may well play a key role<br />
in attracting both researchers and trainees.<br />
“The National Institutes of Health is<br />
extremely pleased we have this new opportunity,”<br />
says Pediatric Allergy & Immunology<br />
Division Chief Robert Wood.“They<br />
now know we have the space and resources<br />
to conduct our studies in the best possible<br />
environment, which can only help to secure<br />
new funding opportunities.”<br />
“The opportunity to show current and<br />
future residents that the space in which<br />
they would be caring for patients conveys<br />
the high level of respect that this building<br />
does for patients is a wonderful message<br />
for us to be sending to applicants,” says<br />
Julia McMillan, vice chair for Education<br />
and director of the Pediatric Residency<br />
Program. “And for the residents who are<br />
here, now (through the transition from<br />
the CMSC) it says we knew the old space<br />
didn’t convey the respect we felt for our<br />
patients, and we fixed it. It took us a while,<br />
but now we’ve fixed it; it isn’t just something<br />
we talk about, it’s something we actually<br />
did.”<br />
It’s a change that could make history. n<br />
Nursing in a<br />
New World<br />
before moving into The Charlotte R.<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, psychiatry<br />
nurses took patients, two at a<br />
time, to see their new unit. Amazed<br />
by its size and amenities, one young<br />
patient exclaimed, “i don’t know how<br />
anyone could be depressed over here.<br />
The view is so beautiful.”<br />
For pediatric nurse Jena Smith, the<br />
new home for her patients and their<br />
families indeed feels brighter and<br />
calmer. “i was so looking forward to<br />
coming over to the new building, to<br />
a world with less chaos and noise,”<br />
says Smith.<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
gone are the old days of crowded<br />
patient rooms and corridors and<br />
the unrelenting cacophony of overhead<br />
paging, phones and multiple<br />
monitors. A quiet nurse-call system,<br />
sound-absorbing building materials,<br />
decentralized supply systems and allprivate<br />
rooms have created a soothing<br />
environment.<br />
“The new decentralized care<br />
environment with single rooms is<br />
remarkably better for children, families,<br />
and the nurses,” says Director of<br />
Pediatric nursing Shelley Baranowski.<br />
“it provides a more comfortable experience<br />
for families and improves safety<br />
with less distractions and noise.”<br />
via the new building’s wi-Fi and realtime<br />
tracking technology, nurses and<br />
other specialists and essential equipment<br />
can be located instantly. with<br />
telemetry now in every playroom,<br />
patients can wear wireless monitors,<br />
allowing them to visit playrooms and<br />
walk the hallways. Sophisticated lighting<br />
systems make it easier for nurses to<br />
perform bedside procedures with even<br />
greater precision.<br />
Also, to complement the move to<br />
this new world, pediatric nurses last<br />
winter launched an interpersonal skills<br />
training program called the “Language<br />
of Caring: Heart-to-Heart Communication,”<br />
designed to improve<br />
communication between staff and families,<br />
a component of the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>’s commitment to patient- and<br />
family-centered care. n –Wendell Smith<br />
Summer 2012 13
14 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
PHOTO By KeVIN weBer<br />
The<br />
rchitecture<br />
of Bloomberg<br />
Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong><br />
A fritted façade inspired by Claude<br />
Monet? Supersize sculptures of puffer<br />
fish and rhinos? A marriage of children’s<br />
classics and contemporary art? Just<br />
what did the architects and artists have<br />
in mind for the new Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>, and what does it mean for<br />
patients and their families?<br />
by Gary Logan<br />
and<br />
Summer 2012 15
n sept. 21, 2009, Bridget Diveley’s breathing suddenly<br />
became heavy, which prompted a quick visit to her<br />
pediatrician, then to the local ED, and finally to <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong> where her parents heard<br />
the last thing they wanted to hear—their daughter<br />
might need a heart transplant. Debbie Long knew even<br />
before her daughter Emily’s birth that multiple cystic lesions<br />
had invaded her brain, a condition that would require repetitive surgeries<br />
throughout her life. Indeed, the now-18-year-old has undergone more than<br />
90 operations by renowned pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A surgical<br />
procedure shortly after birth delayed for six years the liver transplant Sam<br />
Tiemann would eventually need to live, but during that time he and his<br />
parents spent countless hours, days and weeks in the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
which had become their second home.<br />
These parents, like many parents of pediatric<br />
patients at the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
came in crisis, fought through turbulent<br />
times, returned time and again for followup<br />
treatment. They knew of <strong>Hopkins</strong> long<br />
history of success in treating complex, lifethreatening<br />
conditions, and they met physicians<br />
and nurses committed to providing<br />
the best possible outcome for their child.<br />
They felt they were in good hands—the<br />
best hands—and were grateful for the continuing<br />
care their child received.<br />
But for all the compassion and clinical<br />
expertise the hospital contained, the<br />
building itself—the Children’s Medical<br />
& Surgical <strong>Center</strong>, or CMSC—did little<br />
to lighten their emotional burden. The<br />
CMSC, a linear tissue-box of a building<br />
erected in the early 1960s, served practical<br />
clinical purposes quite well for almost<br />
a half-century. But over the years the brick<br />
and mortar began to lose its luster and<br />
imagination, freshness and uniqueness, its<br />
personality—aesthetic dynamics today’s<br />
hospital designers say create and sustain<br />
human connections and help heal. The<br />
clinical staff more than made up for any<br />
design deficits in the building, but both<br />
families and staff knew the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> could be much more with a new<br />
structure and style, which led to a new<br />
16 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
building—The Charlotte R. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>—an artful design and a<br />
healing environment.<br />
“A growing body of evidence shows that<br />
you can create a hospital environment that<br />
connects with patients and families during<br />
a medical crisis, reduces their stress<br />
and anxiety, and enhances their health<br />
and wellbeing in a number of ways,” says<br />
Pediatrics Administrator Ted Chambers.<br />
“That’s what we set out to do through the<br />
art and design of this building.”<br />
One of the early goals was to make the<br />
new building approachable, but how do<br />
you do that with a structure twice the size<br />
of its predecessor? With, building designers<br />
decided, a curved façade covered by a<br />
Monet rainbow of paneled window boxes<br />
marked by countless brush strokes in the<br />
glass known as frit—the creation of installation<br />
artist Spencer Finch. The resulting<br />
effect is a translucent and shimmering<br />
curtain wall that constantly reflects and refracts<br />
the ever changing light of day.<br />
“From the beginning we were thinking<br />
about glass as an analog for water, how<br />
glass and water behave in similar ways, and<br />
what we could do with the glass so that<br />
it’s always changing,” says Finch. “Also,<br />
it’s a big building and it can be intimidating,<br />
but water has a certain softness and<br />
A growing body<br />
of evidence shows<br />
that you can<br />
create a hospital<br />
environment that<br />
connects with<br />
patients and<br />
families during<br />
a medical crisis,<br />
reduces their<br />
stress and anxiety,<br />
and enhances<br />
their health and<br />
wellbeing in a<br />
number of ways.<br />
– PeDIATrICS<br />
ADmINISTrATOr<br />
TeD CHAmBerS
welcoming aspect to it.”<br />
At night, Finch adds, the frit and façade<br />
transform the Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
into a glowing lantern—a snow globe<br />
filled with bustling activities: “There’s a<br />
certain amount of complexity in the design,<br />
and a feeling of activity and aliveness<br />
that reflects all the great stuff that happens<br />
here.”<br />
A long, two-story canopy, an expansive<br />
vehicular entry plaza a football field long,<br />
and a series of gardens and stonework were<br />
designed as welcome signs, too, adds consulting<br />
architect Allen Kolkowitz.<br />
“The overall frit helps dematerialize the<br />
façade, the gardens help soften your approach,<br />
and the canopy adds visual clarity<br />
and unifies the entry,” says Kolkowitz. “It<br />
is the point of arrival.”<br />
And what a point of arrival. A childlike<br />
rhino, atop the back of a larger parent<br />
rhino just outside the ground entrance to<br />
the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>—one of set designer<br />
Robert Israel’s 11 supersize sculptures in<br />
the building—curiously peers up past the<br />
canopy. And what does he or she see? A<br />
22-foot-long orange ostrich dangling from<br />
the ceiling of a four-story atrium, a winged<br />
cubist cow jumping over a necklace of 28<br />
moons, and a family of yellow puffer fish<br />
playing in an imaginary pool over the stairwell<br />
connecting the ground and main levels<br />
of the building. The idea for groups of creatures,<br />
Israel notes, came from Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> Director George Dover, who cited<br />
his young patients’ great need for family<br />
connections during a hospital stay.<br />
“The <strong>Hopkins</strong> spaces became a fantastic<br />
opportunity to bring a sense of fun and<br />
playfulness to this very formidable institution,”<br />
says Israel. “So I started with very<br />
basic, block-like shapes, and made an effort<br />
to include pairs or groups to remind children<br />
that they are not alone.”<br />
“It is a playful response,” adds Kolko-<br />
witz. “Simply put, the sculptures are an<br />
attempt to make the hospital experience<br />
friendly and unintimidating.”<br />
But not in a frivolous way, adds art curator<br />
Nancy Rosen: “Visually the aesthetics<br />
are fresh, unique and thoughtful. They<br />
don’t fall back on simple clichés.”<br />
To be sure, visitors are curious as they<br />
spy a large blue egg atop a tall information<br />
PHOTO By KeVIN weBer<br />
Summer 2012 17
desk in the lobby. An ostrich egg? And<br />
what’s with the Escher-like artwork under<br />
the glass of an elliptical welcome desk in<br />
Bloomberg Children’s atrium lobby? The<br />
five orbs seemingly floating at the end of<br />
a corridor in front of a 28-foot marble<br />
wall on the main level? The book niches<br />
and wall art? Other artworks ranging from<br />
ceramic sculptures to collages, paintings,<br />
photographic prints and watercolors. And<br />
art as window screens?<br />
The three-foot tall egg was indeed delivered<br />
by the outsized ostrich and nestled<br />
into a notch on the spiraling, six-foot-high<br />
information desk. The desk itself, sculpted<br />
from an acrylic solid surface, is a clear and<br />
artful point of reception.<br />
“You’ll see that desk and the art, which is<br />
part of the entry experience,” says Kolkowitz.<br />
“You will want to get closer and it will<br />
sustain your interest as you get closer.”<br />
The lobby elliptical art under glass—<br />
Brooklyn artist Scott Teplin’s ink and<br />
watercolor drawing—reveals an intricate<br />
maze of canals, pools and ponds, rooms<br />
and water slides for young minds to follow,<br />
if they can. They’re also challenged to<br />
find objects hidden within the imaginary<br />
spaces.<br />
The illusionary three-dimensional orbs<br />
floating in space are the “Parallax Knots”<br />
of Brooklyn, N.Y. artist Thomas Burke’s<br />
acrylic on canvas paintings. They’re actually<br />
flat paintings, notes Rosen, but they’ll<br />
catch your eye as you’re walking down the<br />
main level corridor.<br />
“It will draw you down the hall and as<br />
you’re looking at the art the baby rhino,<br />
which comes up to the height of the main<br />
18 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
There’s a certain amount of complexity in the<br />
design, and a feeling of activity and aliveness that<br />
reflects all the great stuff that happens here.<br />
– INSTALLATION ArTIST SPeNCer FINCH<br />
level window, will be looking right at you,”<br />
says Rosen. “With all those saturated colors<br />
of the paintings and the baby rhino, this<br />
should be a happy conversation.”<br />
The book niches, glass-enclosed displays<br />
embedded in the walls at the elevator<br />
lobbies on each floor, contain colorful<br />
dioramas created by Baltimore artist Jennifer<br />
Strunge. Using recycled clothing and<br />
cloth, she populated each niche with fanciful<br />
creatures, including monkeys, bunnies<br />
and an octopus, reading children’s classics<br />
like “Goodnight Moon” and “The Secret<br />
Garden.”<br />
On the wall of each elevator lobby is a<br />
corresponding work of art—one of more<br />
than 300 such works of art in the building<br />
by over 30 artists—inspired by a theme,<br />
scene or story line in a particular book in<br />
the neighboring niche. This marriage of art<br />
and literature takes children by the hand<br />
on a journey to another time, another<br />
place, where they may face—but also overcome—perilous<br />
obstacles.<br />
California artist Terri Friedman, for example,<br />
was inspired by the determination<br />
and deep love of two characters in “Fly<br />
High, Fly Low,” which allowed them to<br />
rise above adversity. Regarding her painting<br />
in the family lounge on Level 4, she<br />
notes that “The sun’s rays over the water<br />
represent hope, love and faith. Stormy skies<br />
are healed by the rays of the sun.” Similarly,<br />
Philadelphia artist Joy Feasley was<br />
inspired by an illustration in “King Stork”<br />
by Howard Pyle. Her painting on Level 12,<br />
she notes, imagines a dramatic castle and<br />
other magical places where “beauty is everywhere,<br />
even during the most frightening<br />
moments of the story.”<br />
Such artworks permeate Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, and the messages of<br />
courage and optimism they leave for young<br />
patients are like treasured messages in a<br />
bottle, buoyant and beloved.<br />
“We wanted the art in the building to<br />
celebrate the power of books as a means<br />
to promote healing,” explains Rosen. “But<br />
we’re not trying to be prescriptive about<br />
what you should read or see in a book.<br />
Everyone has their own imagination, everyone<br />
can see what they see. It’s an opportunity<br />
to explore and feel free.”<br />
The concept of window screen as art<br />
came to light when designers realized the<br />
walls of patient rooms leave little room for<br />
anything but medical equipment. An added<br />
inspiration was Baltimore’s folk tradition of<br />
painting doors and window screens, which<br />
explains why local landmarks like Camden<br />
Yards, the pagoda in Patterson Park, and<br />
the historic Shot Tower are featured on the
window shade in every patient room. You<br />
might feel like you’re sitting on a Baltimore<br />
row house front porch rather than in a hospital<br />
room.<br />
“We wanted designs that were both informative<br />
and illustrative,” says Jim Boyd,<br />
the artist who created the imagery for the<br />
window shades. “So we loaded the shades<br />
with lots of fun references and images peculiar<br />
to Baltimore.”<br />
While the designers were thinking<br />
themes like engagement and exploration<br />
in planning the art, they had openness and<br />
orientation in mind for the blueprint of the<br />
building itself. They gave the long corridors<br />
in the building large windows at their ends<br />
to break down the scale of the building,<br />
and off each elevator lobby they placed a<br />
glass-enclosed family lounge with views of<br />
the harbor, the city, the hospital exterior,<br />
constantly orienting visitors to where they<br />
are in the interior. Also, the predominant<br />
blue tones in the elevator lobbies, along<br />
patient floors and on the walkways of the<br />
bridge leading into Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>—distinguished from the green<br />
tones of the neighboring Sheikh Zayed<br />
Tower for adult patients—immediately<br />
lets pediatric patients and their families<br />
know they are in the right place.<br />
Patients and parents need not feel lost<br />
or overwhelmed, explains <strong>Hopkins</strong> Facilities<br />
Vice President Sally MacConnell, but<br />
oriented, safe and secure: “We want people<br />
to know where they’re going and to feel as<br />
comfortable as possible through the building<br />
environment.”<br />
Adds <strong>Hopkins</strong> architect Michael Iati,<br />
“Why blanket a building with signage<br />
when you can guide visitors via the design<br />
of the building itself.”<br />
The airy four-story atrium reinforces the<br />
feeling of openness, too. As in the bi-level<br />
Sheikh Zayed lobby, Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> visitors are also welcomed<br />
by a flood of ambient lobby light, Grecian<br />
white marble, terrazzo floors, and the entry<br />
plaza’s gardens and reflecting pools bordering<br />
the new building. Observers point to<br />
sensations of stability and strength, support<br />
and trust, healing and hope.<br />
Meanwhile, the art does not so much<br />
stand alone as integrate and interact with<br />
this environment. At each turn a patient,<br />
family member or visitor in this aesthetic<br />
sea of insights and positive diversions discovers<br />
a different path and place, a new<br />
moment, a fresh journey that engages and<br />
enlivens their experience. You may ponder<br />
here. Take a trip. And if you have to come<br />
back, ponder some more.<br />
“From our collective point of view,” says<br />
Kolkowitz. “it’s all about expanding the experience<br />
of the patient and the family.”<br />
So, what is the experience like for patients<br />
like Bridget, Emily, Sam and their<br />
families? What does the art and building<br />
design say to them? How have they reacted?<br />
On her first visit to the new hospital<br />
Bridget immediately started dancing<br />
with the rhinos and then with the ostrich.<br />
Emily, a competitive swimmer herself,<br />
found herself floating among the puffer<br />
fish with pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson,<br />
and Sam got to play some B-ball with<br />
pediatric liver specialist Kathy Schwarz in<br />
the Level 10 elevator lobby that features<br />
the book “Hoops” by Walter Dean Myers.<br />
Patients Make the Alphabet an Art Form<br />
Thanks to pediatric patients and Baltimore<br />
artist and MiCA graduate Lauren P. Adams,<br />
several playful alphabets have made their<br />
way into the artwork of the new Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>. Over the course<br />
of several workshops, Adams taught the<br />
youngsters how to make patterned cut-<br />
outs using a process called papel picado,<br />
the folk art technique of folding and cutting<br />
paper popular in Mexico and other<br />
Latin American countries. To craft the<br />
final alphabet, Adams brought together<br />
many of the patients’ unique cut-outs<br />
to create 26 uppercase letters. The final<br />
Sam’s favorite quote from the book? “I got<br />
a lot of my dream but I got more than I<br />
dreamed of.”<br />
Indeed. n<br />
For more on patients’ reactions to the art and<br />
architecture of Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
see the photo journal beginning on page 20.<br />
So I started with very<br />
basic, block-like shapes,<br />
and made an effort to<br />
include pairs or groups<br />
to remind children that<br />
they are not alone.<br />
– SeT DeSIGNer<br />
rOBerT ISrAeL<br />
Simply put,<br />
the sculptures<br />
are an attempt<br />
to make the<br />
hospital<br />
experience<br />
friendly and<br />
unintimidating.<br />
– ArCHITeCT<br />
ALLeN KOLKOwITz<br />
designs were then printed as color silk<br />
screens, under Adams’ supervision, by<br />
Baltimore Print Studios, and now hang at<br />
various locations throughout the Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, including outside<br />
Schaffer auditorium on the main level and<br />
near the children’s library on Level 3. n<br />
Summer 2012 19
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> patients simion sarte,<br />
middle, and Gavin Michel-Baird boost their<br />
spirits playing in sara’s Garden, while Child<br />
Life specialist Monica Gibson looks on.<br />
20 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
Flying<br />
High,<br />
Flying<br />
Low<br />
in an Artful<br />
new world<br />
Through literary-themed artworks<br />
young patients follow paths to magical<br />
forests and secret gardens where they<br />
discover polar bears and puffer fish,<br />
tree spirits and themselves.<br />
Photography by Keith Weller<br />
Summer 2012 21
22 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
on bloomberg 3, adventurer Alexa Lazarou, age<br />
5, of Columbia, md., sets her sails through artwork<br />
by wellfleet, mass., artist Timothy woodman,<br />
who was inspired by the heroic journeys he found<br />
in “Around the world in 80 Days,” “moby Dick”<br />
and “The wizard of Oz.” Says Alexa, who was<br />
born at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>,“I’m curious about places,<br />
where we are and why we’re here.”<br />
the book niches embedded in the walls at the elevator lobbies on each floor contain colorful<br />
dioramas created by Baltimore artist Jennifer strunge, who populated each niche with fanciful<br />
creatures reading children’s classics like “Goodnight Moon” and “the secret Garden.” On<br />
the end wall of each elevator lobby is a corresponding work of art inspired by a book in the<br />
neighboring niche. this marriage of art and literature takes children on a journey to another<br />
time, another place, where they may face—but also overcome—perilous obstacles.
a swimmer herself,<br />
18-year-old emily Long<br />
with pediatric neurosurgeon<br />
Ben Carson, joins a pool<br />
of puffer fish sculptures<br />
designed by set designer<br />
robert Israel.<br />
Summer 2012 23
24 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
on bloomberg 10, patient Sam Tiemann,<br />
with pediatric hepatologist Kathy Schwarz, still<br />
has plenty of game after two liver transplants.<br />
His favorite quote from the book “Hoops” by<br />
walter Dean myers, which inspired the wall<br />
art by Thomas Allen: “I got a lot of my dream.<br />
But I got more than I dreamed of.”<br />
on her first visit to Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>, pediatric heart transplant patient<br />
Bridget Diveley immediately started dancing<br />
with the 22-foot-long ostrich sculpture<br />
suspended from the ceiling of the hospital’s<br />
four-story atrium. Bridget is also a big fan<br />
of Dr. Seuss books, especially “The Cat in<br />
the Hat.”<br />
i got a lot<br />
of my dream.<br />
but i got<br />
more than i<br />
dreamed of.<br />
—Walter Dean Myers<br />
“Hoops”<br />
Summer 2012 25
26 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
in the family lounge on Bloomberg 4,<br />
patient Dominic Herrick’s spirits soar with<br />
artwork by el Cerrito, Ca., artist Terri Friedman,<br />
who was inspired by the theme of love<br />
overcoming adversity in Don Freeman’s book<br />
“Fly High, Fly Low.” Summing up his art, Friedman<br />
wrote, “The sun’s rays over the water<br />
represent hope, love and faith. Stormy skies are<br />
healed by the rays of the sun.”<br />
stormy skies<br />
are healed by<br />
the rays of<br />
the sun<br />
—Terri Friedman
patient elijah<br />
sponseller, age 2,<br />
reads and reflects by<br />
the “Goodnight moon”<br />
niche in Bloomberg<br />
<strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
Summer 2012 27
at the level 1 elevator<br />
lobby, 13-year-old Xzavier<br />
eagan ponders the wintry<br />
magical world of “Polar<br />
Pink” by Pennsylvania artists<br />
walter martin and Paloma<br />
munoz, who were inspired<br />
by “The Golden Compass”<br />
by Philip Pullman.<br />
28 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
pediatric patient and middle-school cheerleader Brittany Falcone,<br />
top left, finds air time with New york artist Thomas Burke’s “Parallax<br />
Knots,” flat acrylic paintings that appear to be floating in space at the<br />
end of Bloomberg Children’s main level corridor.<br />
“ walking into bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> makes me feel like I’m<br />
arriving at a party with confetti falling off the windows,” says pediatric<br />
heart transplant patient Noah Thyberg, with pediatric cardiologist<br />
Janet Scheel.<br />
Summer 2012 29
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Section Index<br />
32 More Space for Premier ED<br />
33 niCU Design with Less Movement in Mind<br />
35 “Sweet Spot” Space in new ORs<br />
36 kids Only imaging<br />
39 <strong>Meals</strong> “At <strong>Your</strong> Request”<br />
inside bloomberg<br />
30 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
In the open and naturally-lit twostory<br />
infusion suite, pediatric<br />
oncologists Ken Cohen (left) and<br />
don small with pediatric oncology<br />
nurse manager Lisa Fratino.
“From the point of view of our patients<br />
and their families, as well as our physicians,<br />
fellows, nurses and other staff, the<br />
improvement in continuity of care would<br />
be tremendous,” Small said at the time.<br />
The powers that be listened and connected<br />
the two units in the new Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>. That means rather than<br />
taking a ten-minute walk across campus to<br />
check on a recently discharged patient in<br />
the outpatient clinic, staff now only have<br />
to walk down a hallway.<br />
“Perhaps someone on the outpatient<br />
side did not know what the patient’s<br />
condition was like on the inpatient side,<br />
whether the patient is better, worse or the<br />
same as when they were discharged,” Small<br />
says. “Now the inpatient team can easily<br />
help out with that evaluation by running<br />
over quickly to the outpatient clinic to see<br />
the patient and consult with staff.”<br />
The arrangement improves physician<br />
learning, too, Small explains. After discharge,<br />
fellows have a greater ability to see<br />
their own patients and how the patient’s<br />
particular type of childhood cancer is responding<br />
to treatment. The adjacency,<br />
adds pediatric oncologist Ken Cohen,<br />
also means seamless movement of patients<br />
between inpatient and outpatient<br />
units, with the potential for reducing a<br />
hospital length of stay.<br />
“For the patient waiting to be admitted,<br />
we can start inpatient chemotherapy<br />
here in the outpatient infusion area and<br />
then move the patient down the hall<br />
when the room is ready,” says Cohen.<br />
“You don’t have to wait for the patient<br />
to get to the floor to do those kinds of<br />
things, which can mean the difference<br />
between an extra night in the hospital.<br />
For our patients, who are repetitively hospitalized,<br />
any night not in the hospital is<br />
a good night.”<br />
Other features in pediatric oncology<br />
include larger and all-private inpatient<br />
rooms and more-accessible treatment<br />
rooms. The outpatient side features an<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Oncology<br />
children’s center<br />
A Model for Continuity of Care<br />
By Gary Logan<br />
For children with cancer, continuity of care is essential. That was the response of Pediatric<br />
Oncology Director Donald Small and his staff when asked years ago for input on the design<br />
of their unit in The Charlotte r. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>. So rather than just build an<br />
inpatient unit, why not add an adjacent pediatric oncology outpatient component?<br />
open and naturally lit two-story infusion<br />
room, and more exam rooms to speed up<br />
patient flow and reduce wait times. Also,<br />
all of the nurses are specially trained in<br />
caring for children with cancer.<br />
“We’re the only unit in the area with a<br />
dedicated nursing staff who only take care<br />
of cancer patients,” Small says.<br />
Small adds that pediatric oncology in<br />
the Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> continues<br />
its policy of seeing patients the same<br />
day as their call.<br />
“Pediatricians and parents may worry<br />
about how to get the child into the <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
system, but that’s something they<br />
don’t have to worry about,” Small says.<br />
“If they call the HAL line, my office, the<br />
outpatient clinic or inpatient unit, we<br />
will get them to the right place and see<br />
them that day.” n<br />
For more information, visit<br />
www.hopkinschildrens.org/oncology<br />
Summer 2012 31
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> Emergency Medicine<br />
More<br />
Space for a<br />
Premier ED<br />
PEDiATRiC EMERGEnCY MEDiCinE Director<br />
Douglas Baker couldn’t be happier with<br />
the space his department has in the new<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>. After all, it<br />
is twice the size of the former Pediatric ED<br />
with private exam rooms in a child-friendly<br />
atmosphere. Also, it’s easily accessible with<br />
a convenient drop-off area by the front<br />
entrance and a covered 12-bay ambulance<br />
area at the rear. A covered pedestrian footbridge<br />
from the parking lot to the new hospital<br />
enhances access, too.<br />
“We asked for more space and easier<br />
ways for patients and families to get here,<br />
and we got what we asked for,” says Baker.<br />
“We acquired some other features, too, that<br />
greatly enhance the ability of our staff to<br />
care for patients.”<br />
Those features include enhanced imaging<br />
capabilities in the Pediatric ED that<br />
eliminate the need to shuffle patients to<br />
and from radiology for imaging. Now pediatric<br />
radiologists are on-site in the Pediatric<br />
ED during peak hours (8 a.m. – 11<br />
p.m.), allowing the majority of imaging to<br />
be done on the spot in the ED. Roundthe-clock<br />
ultrasound and MRI help ensure<br />
responsible imaging by allowing the<br />
most appropriate examination to be used<br />
in every case, providing the best diagnostic<br />
information at the lowest possible radiation<br />
exposure. For example, Baker notes, a<br />
child’s suspected appendicitis can often be<br />
confirmed with an ultrasound. But because<br />
many EDs do not have an ultrasound specialist<br />
at all times, CT scans are often the<br />
32 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
at their new entrance, from left to right, pediatric<br />
emergency medicine physicians elizabeth<br />
Hines, Karen schneider, Bruce Klein, C. Jean<br />
Ogborn, thuy Ngo, douglas Baker, Mitchell<br />
Goldstein, and Jennifer anders.<br />
first-line imaging choice.<br />
“While CT scans can be very helpful,<br />
other radiation-free testing options are<br />
frequently just as useful diagnostic aids,”<br />
says Baker. “Our emergency medicine<br />
physicians and pediatric radiologists will<br />
continue to work together to identify diagnostic<br />
plans that minimize risk to our<br />
patients and maximize accuracy of care.”<br />
The experience and expertise of those<br />
clinicians also greatly influence care, adds<br />
Baker, who has been growing his staff—<br />
in fact tripling it—in the years leading up<br />
to the opening of Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>.<br />
“We’ve been recruiting national leaders<br />
in pediatric emergency medicine,” Baker<br />
says, “to build a premier emergency medicine<br />
service and to ensure the best possible<br />
outcomes for our patients.” n —GL<br />
Features<br />
> Separate triage rooms rather than<br />
one triage space to reduce waiting<br />
times and enhance patient privacy<br />
> All private exam rooms, a separate<br />
treatment room for minor emergencies,<br />
and two isolation rooms<br />
> Dedicated pediatric trauma bays<br />
> Expert management of multi-system<br />
illness and trauma<br />
> nurses educated, trained and certified<br />
in pediatric emergency nursing<br />
> A multidisciplinary Child Protection<br />
Team devoted to recognizing and<br />
treating victims of child abuse<br />
> Dedicated Child Life specialists,<br />
who help minimize psychological<br />
and emotional trauma<br />
> Staff are members of the Pediatric<br />
Emergency Care Applied Research<br />
network (PECARn), who study<br />
treatment protocols and acute<br />
illness prevention
seamless Care tailored for Children<br />
in THE OLD Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, pediatric<br />
trauma staff took care of children in trauma<br />
bays designed for adults. Also, MR imaging<br />
was located a floor below. But the new<br />
Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
features two dedicated state-of-the-art pediatric<br />
trauma bays and four adult trauma<br />
bays adaptable for children, with imaging<br />
modalities accessible on the same groundfloor<br />
level.<br />
“No longer do we have to put children<br />
on elevators to get imaging scans,” says<br />
Pediatric Trauma/Burn Program Coordinator<br />
Katie Manger. “We have 24/7 MRI<br />
and quicker access to care.”<br />
The new pediatric trauma bays also<br />
feature futuristic overhead booms that<br />
facilitate easy and quick access to trauma<br />
equipment. Also, with OR-like scrub<br />
rooms off the trauma bays, trauma surgeons<br />
can quickly perform emergency operations<br />
without transporting the patient to an OR.<br />
“We never have to leave the patient’s<br />
side,” says Pediatric Trauma/Burn Pro-<br />
gram Manager Susan Ziegfeld.<br />
Features in the new burn inpatient<br />
unit, Ziegfeld and Manger add, include<br />
all-private rooms—important in minimizing<br />
infection risks—and two large dressing<br />
rooms with the latest equipment to<br />
minimize the pain associated with dressing<br />
changes. n —GL<br />
For more information, call 888-kid-burn.<br />
NICu Design with Less movement in mind<br />
In one of the new Labor & delivery Ors,<br />
obstetrics Nurse Manager Joan diamond<br />
with NICu Nurse Manager sue Culp.<br />
FOR HiGH-RiSk neonates, unnecessary<br />
movement is the enemy—a message neonatologist<br />
Sue Aucott took to heart in<br />
helping to design <strong>Hopkins</strong> new neonatal<br />
intensive care unit (NICU). Critical to safe<br />
and efficient transport, she stressed, is a<br />
close proximity between Labor & Delivery<br />
and the NICU—The Sutland/Pakula Family<br />
Newborn Critical Care <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
“Having the units apart adds an extra<br />
challenge to moving babies, especially critically<br />
ill newborns,” Aucott says. “The less<br />
movement for the babies the better.”<br />
In the new configuration the NICU and<br />
Labor & Delivery are within a whisper of<br />
each other on the eighth floor of the new<br />
clinical building, with the obstetric ORs<br />
as a connector so that high-risk neonates<br />
will be handed off to NICU staff immediately<br />
after delivery. Of course, more than<br />
proximity went into planning, says obstetrics<br />
Nurse Manager Joan Diamond: “Our<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Trauma & Burn<br />
the pediatric trauma/<br />
burn team, from left to<br />
right, trauma surgeon<br />
dylan stewart, coordinator<br />
Katie Manger,<br />
manager susan Ziegfeld,<br />
nurse practitioner daniela<br />
Coelho, and social<br />
worker Mindi Lutwin.<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | neonatology<br />
units were designed as the ultimate in care,<br />
with high-risk newborns in mind.”<br />
OB census screens on NICU computers<br />
allow staff to identify high-risk moms<br />
in Labor & Delivery. And well before delivery,<br />
a neonatologist or fellow meet with<br />
those mothers-to-be and familiarize them<br />
with the NICU to prepare for their newborn’s<br />
stay. When pre-term labor begins,<br />
OB staff text the NICU’s delivery room<br />
response team—a NICU resident, fellow,<br />
respiratory therapist and admissions<br />
nurse—to prepare to pick up the newborn.<br />
Another plus: Family-friendly amenities<br />
are prominent in the new units, including<br />
all-private rooms with sleeping facilities.<br />
“Parents who are more comfortable in<br />
their surroundings make it much easier for<br />
us to care for babies,” says NICU nurse<br />
manager Sue Culp. “With a private room<br />
and decreased stimulation, they really get<br />
to focus on their baby.” n —GL<br />
Summer 2012 33
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> Cardiology<br />
niche Services<br />
Under One Roof<br />
wHAT’S nEw FOR pediatric cardiologists<br />
and their patients in The Charlotte R.<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>? “Exuberant<br />
space under one roof,” says Director Joel<br />
Brenner, noting that division facilities and<br />
faculty had been somewhat scattered and<br />
separate in its former space. But with an<br />
outpatient clinic and non-invasive imaging<br />
suite, fetal echo and heart transplant programs,<br />
and faculty offices housed together<br />
on the second floor of the new hospital,<br />
care will not only be cozier but more collaborative,<br />
too—and that means better care<br />
for a wider range of patients.<br />
“The new building was designed with<br />
collaboration and consultation in mind,<br />
and to provide services to an enormous<br />
range of patients in an area that is much<br />
more physically pleasing than our former<br />
space,” says Brenner, citing a comfortable<br />
family lounge adorned with artwork and<br />
tastefully decorated exam rooms. “Rather<br />
than treat only children, our division faculty<br />
have a greater capability to take care<br />
of all patients, from the fetus to the adult,<br />
with congenital heart conditions.”<br />
The new space includes six exam rooms,<br />
three treatment rooms for echo sedation,<br />
an exercise pulmonary function lab, private<br />
consult rooms for family discussions,<br />
and a room for resident education.<br />
The space facilitates pediatric cardiology<br />
services for a broad range of disorders,<br />
including arrhythmias, connective tissue<br />
and lipid disorders.<br />
“The key issue in pediatric cardiology<br />
these days is having the subspecialty<br />
niches,” Brenner says.<br />
Technology, as well as space, facilitates<br />
subspecialty care. Imaging features include<br />
an upgraded echocardiography suite with<br />
top-line equipment and an experienced<br />
staff that enhance diagnostics and collaboration<br />
with referring physicians.<br />
“We don’t want to have surprises when<br />
the child goes to the OR for heart surgery<br />
or the catheterization lab for an interventional<br />
procedure,” says Director of Pediatric<br />
Cardiology Imaging Phil Spevak.<br />
34 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
The new pediatric cardiac catheterization<br />
lab provides three-dimensional, highdefinition<br />
images to ensure accuracy and<br />
improve results for patients. For example,<br />
notes pediatric cardiologist Richard Ringel,<br />
patients with congenital heart disease<br />
often require periodic work on their pulmonary<br />
arteries, whose complex anatomy<br />
is not well captured on standard X-ray images.<br />
But three-D imaging allows better<br />
planning and execution of procedures like<br />
stenting and dilation of narrowed pulmonary<br />
vessels.<br />
“Three-dimensional imaging in the cath<br />
lab allows for even better precision when<br />
implanting stents in blood vessels with<br />
complex obstructions,” says Ringel.<br />
Concludes Brenner, “It’s an exciting<br />
time to be here. This space allows us to<br />
move into the next century.” n —GL<br />
For more information, visit www.hopkinschildrens.org/cardiology<br />
the new pediatric cardiac catheterization<br />
lab, notes pediatric interventional<br />
cardiologist richard ringel, provides threedimensional,<br />
high-definition images to ensure<br />
accuracy and improve results for patients.<br />
Features<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, pediatric<br />
cardiologists provide services for<br />
a broad range of disorders, including—<br />
> Arrhythmias<br />
> Congenital heart disease for children<br />
and adults<br />
> Connective tissue disorders<br />
> Fetal heart problems<br />
> General cardiology disorders<br />
> Genetic heart disorders<br />
> Heart failure<br />
> Lipid disease<br />
> ventricular disorders
in new ORs, Surgeons<br />
Find the “Sweet Spot”<br />
UnOBSTRUCTED SPACE and technological<br />
advances make the new operating rooms<br />
at Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> ideal for<br />
minimally invasive procedures.<br />
For pediatric surgeons Fizan Abdullah,<br />
Jeffrey Lukish and Dylan Stewart, the<br />
<strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital adult operating<br />
rooms in which they tirelessly toiled for<br />
years seem from an era long, long ago.<br />
Though it’s been only weeks since they<br />
moved into Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
that was more than enough time to<br />
discover what they describe as futuristic<br />
customized pediatric surgical suites with<br />
overhead booms—rather than floor towers—designed<br />
to better position audio,<br />
video and minimally invasive instruments.<br />
“There’s a lot of hands-free video feed<br />
that allows us to do advanced laparoscopic<br />
surgery without the cumbersome nature of<br />
towers around the table,” says Lukish.<br />
“A lot of laparoscopic and telemedicine<br />
components have been built into some of<br />
Pediatric surgeons abdullah, Lukish and stewart in one of the new pediatric Ors.<br />
these ORs,” says Abdullah. “In the immediate<br />
future, laparascopic surgery will<br />
increasingly be a bread and butter component<br />
of our surgical expertise.”<br />
“Not only does the technology make our<br />
minimally invasive procedures simpler and<br />
more efficient,” adds Stewart, “it also facilitates<br />
teaching.”<br />
The pediatric surgeons also stress that<br />
the 600 square feet of space in each OR<br />
Another First in Outpatient Clinic Care<br />
PEDiATRiC PHYSiCAL and occupational<br />
therapists have long been proud of their<br />
service in the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>. They’ve<br />
provided comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation<br />
services through an interdisciplinary<br />
approach for a variety of childhood disorders,<br />
including burns, cystic fibrosis, Down<br />
syndrome, muscular dystrophy, and orthopedic<br />
injuries, among others. Working in<br />
an academic setting, they’ve also been able<br />
to help advance their field through participating<br />
in research on a wide range of issues<br />
stemming from impairment and limited<br />
function.<br />
But because of space limitations they’ve<br />
not been able to achieve one of their top<br />
priorities—an outpatient pediatric rehabilitation<br />
program. With the opening of<br />
The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> May 1, however, that goal became<br />
a reality, too.<br />
“This is our first outpatient physical<br />
rehabilitation clinic,” says Pediatric Rehabilitation<br />
Team Coordinator Julie Quinn.<br />
“That’s what we’re starting here.”<br />
“Here” is one corner of the second floor<br />
of the Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, where<br />
the spacious, state-of-the-art suite sits. Features<br />
include a kitchen area, a small gym<br />
and a larger main room for multiple activities<br />
and exercises to help patients regain<br />
strength and endurance. The benefits of<br />
such an in-hospital outpatient rehab clinic<br />
include improved continuity of care and<br />
patient-family convenience, Quinn notes.<br />
Oncology outpatients coming to the hospital<br />
weekly for medical follow-ups, for example,<br />
can schedule their physical therapy<br />
and occupational therapy at the same time.<br />
“Rather than send inpatients being<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Surgery<br />
represents the ideal “sweet spot” for operating<br />
on children. That space not only offers<br />
surgeons and OR nurses more elbow room,<br />
but patients safer transport in and out of<br />
the ORs. With pre-op and post-op care<br />
units adjacent to the operating rooms—<br />
rather than on different floors in their previous<br />
home—“Recovery,” says Stewart, “is<br />
a night and day difference from where we<br />
were.” n —GL<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Physical Rehabilitation<br />
discharged somewhere else,” says Quinn,<br />
“patients can have their physical and occupational<br />
therapy here. Why send them<br />
outside?”<br />
The focus is on children and adolescents<br />
with significant medical conditions, like a<br />
serious orthopedic injury or cancer. The<br />
effects of medical treatments like chemotherapy<br />
and radiation treatment for childhood<br />
cancers—which can decrease core<br />
strength and endurance for patients—are<br />
targeted, too.<br />
“Evidence-based research has shown that<br />
those young children don’t regain what<br />
they once had without rehab intervention,”<br />
says Quinn.<br />
The clinic is staffed by four physical<br />
therapists, three occupational therapists,<br />
and a pediatric hand therapist. For more<br />
information, call 443-287-9262. n —GL<br />
Summer 2012 35
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Radiology<br />
imaging for kids Only<br />
iT wASn’T TOO LOnG ago, Division of Pediatric<br />
Radiology Director Thierry Huisman<br />
notes, that a 4-year-old would find<br />
himself in a radiology waiting room sitting<br />
next to an 85-year-old man, or a healthy<br />
child next to a sick child. That’s because<br />
pediatric radiologists shared space with<br />
their adult counterparts where they treated<br />
both inpatient and outpatients. Also, their<br />
offices and the imaging suites they used<br />
were dispersed throughout the hospital. In<br />
a sense, the division had no home.<br />
No more. Now housed on Level 4 of the<br />
new Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>, pediatric radiologists—for the first<br />
time—have their own dedicated space.<br />
“It’s much more convenient for parents<br />
and children to go to one place in a pediatric<br />
setting,” says Huisman. “They do<br />
not have to walk into a hospital set up for<br />
adults.”<br />
Another plus, Huisman notes, is pediatric<br />
radiology’s proximity to the pediatric<br />
intensive care unit (PICU), pediatric operating<br />
rooms, and pre-op and post-op care<br />
units, all of which are also on Level 4. That<br />
translates into safer transport of pediatric<br />
patients and a more rapid response from<br />
radiologists.<br />
Imaging is safer and more family friendly<br />
in the new suite, too, notes Huisman,<br />
pointing to separate waiting areas for inpatients<br />
and outpatients that reduce their<br />
risk of infection. Also, Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
radiologists are using the newest imaging<br />
equipment optimized for low-dose radiation,<br />
thereby reducing exposure.<br />
Family-friendly initiatives include glassenclosed<br />
alcoves in the radiology suites to<br />
allow young patients to have visual contact<br />
with their parents while undergoing<br />
imaging. Also, dedicated “quiet rooms,”<br />
designed to have a calming, soothing effect<br />
on young children awaiting imaging,<br />
is helping them avoid general anesthesia.<br />
Huisman notes that over a recent twomonth<br />
period, 13 children scheduled for<br />
an imaging study under general anesthesia<br />
were able to complete their studies without<br />
it thanks to the quiet rooms and the<br />
36 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
support of the recently recruited full-time<br />
Child Life specialist in Pediatric Radiology.<br />
Having a radiologic reading room in the<br />
Pediatric Emergency Department, another<br />
first, facilitates greater interaction between<br />
pediatric radiologists conducting the studies<br />
and ED physicians. “This will greatly<br />
improve the quality of interpretation of<br />
imaging studies,” says Huisman, “which<br />
should make a big difference in service.<br />
We’re now a part of the ED team.”<br />
Huisman also notes that thanks to <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> leadership’s support, he has been<br />
able to grow his division from three pediatric<br />
radiologists four years ago to more than<br />
six today. That means quicker referrals and<br />
more accurate imaging studies.<br />
“The leaders of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Medicine<br />
made a clear statement that they<br />
wanted to offer children the best care possible<br />
by building a new high-end hospital<br />
and expanding its pediatric radiology<br />
expertise,” says Huisman. “The acquisition<br />
of new faculty will mean much better end<br />
results and a much more enjoyable experience<br />
for patients and families.” n —GL<br />
It’s much more<br />
convenient for parents<br />
and children to go to<br />
one place in a pediatric<br />
setting. They do not<br />
have to walk into a<br />
hospital set up<br />
for adults.<br />
– THIerry HuISmAN, m.D.<br />
In the new Ct suite for children only, (from left to right) pediatric radiologists Melissa<br />
spevak, thierry Huisman and aylin tekes.
this room is Great<br />
PATiEnTS in THE CHARLOTTE R. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> will have something<br />
great to talk about after they stop by<br />
the two-story playroom on Level 11 near<br />
pediatric oncology. The so-called “Great<br />
Room,” notes Director of Child Life Patrice<br />
Brylske, is open to all pediatric patients<br />
but especially designed for children<br />
with cancer, who may be immune-compromised,<br />
as a place to play without risk of<br />
exposure from other children. With stairs<br />
leading to the child and adolescent psychiatry<br />
unit on Level 12, the Great Room also<br />
allows psychiatry patients easy access and<br />
uninterrupted use of the space.<br />
“In the new building, our children will<br />
have the freedom to play in a large open<br />
area without being exposed to the elements<br />
or restricted by them,” says Brylske. “It will<br />
open a new world in the hospital to them,<br />
and help normalize their experience here.”<br />
The 27-by-48-foot room has a basketball<br />
net, plenty of windows and closets<br />
A Studio for CCTV<br />
in THE FORMER Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, CCTV<br />
(Children’s <strong>Center</strong> TV) was solely a remote<br />
operation, typically broadcasting from<br />
crowded playrooms. But today patients,<br />
families and visitors have a first-hand view<br />
of CCTV programming via Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>’s glass-enclosed CCTV<br />
studio off the main level corridor. Now<br />
they can watch shows—like interviews<br />
with visiting celebrities or patient-directed<br />
talent shows—as they’re taking place. With<br />
live feeds to major play and assembly areas<br />
in the new hospital, including its auditorium<br />
and two-story playroom, CCTV has<br />
at last its own modern venue for entertaining<br />
and engaging patients.<br />
“For the first time we have an editing<br />
suite, studio lighting, backdrops and seating<br />
arrangements that can be rearranged to<br />
suit the occasion,” says Child Life Video<br />
Producer Carlos Harris. “And the studio’s<br />
central location makes it easier to get folks<br />
to stop by and say hello to our kids over<br />
the TV.”<br />
for play supplies. Child Life specialists<br />
supervise the room and its children and<br />
guide them in recreational activities.<br />
Children and teens throughout Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> have access to the<br />
Great Room, as well as multiple smaller<br />
playrooms throughout the building. n<br />
—Wendell Smith<br />
Overseen by the Department of Child<br />
Life, CCTV features the videography of<br />
Harris and on-air talent of Child Life’s<br />
special events coordinator Annie Woods<br />
Beatson, who together with Child Life colleagues<br />
lead patients in the weekly and ever<br />
popular Hospital Bingo, host a cooking<br />
show and introduce Clown TV. Broadcast<br />
through the new interactive TigrNet system,<br />
CCTV programming not only provides<br />
diversions from what Beatson calls<br />
the “boredom and abnormality of being in<br />
a hospital,” but camaraderie and relief from<br />
a sense of isolation.<br />
“It is amazing how many of our patients,<br />
confined as they are to their beds or units,<br />
don’t realize that there are so many others<br />
undergoing care here,” says Beatson.<br />
“CCTV helps them see that they are far<br />
from being alone, which helps create a<br />
sense of community.” n —WS<br />
For more information on CCTV, contact the<br />
Department of Child Life at 410-516-6276.<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Child Life<br />
at center in red and white<br />
stripes, Child Life director<br />
Patrice Brylske and her<br />
staff of Child Life specialists<br />
look forward to activities<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>'s two-story playroom.<br />
Carlos Harris and annie Woods Beatson<br />
welcome a patient to CCtV.<br />
Summer 2012 37
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Patient Amenities<br />
with Tigrnet, Tv is Much More than Tv<br />
THERE wAS A TiME, Television Services Coordinator<br />
Tria Tucker says, when a woman<br />
would stop by a patient’s room with a cash<br />
box and sign-up form in hand for television<br />
service each day. And if you didn’t<br />
pay, Tucker notes, she would come back<br />
later and turn off the TV.<br />
“Not only that, but the TVs got poor<br />
reception and looked like they came from<br />
‘The Flintstones’ era,” laughs Tucker.<br />
The days of per-diem fees and channel<br />
surfing a boxy 13-inch TV are long over,<br />
says Tucker, noting that television access<br />
in the Children’s <strong>Center</strong> for some time<br />
has been free and clear and the channel<br />
choices many. Now, in The Charlotte R.<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, television<br />
services are taking on a more futuristic and<br />
family-friendlier face. A new system called<br />
TigrNet not only offers extensive television<br />
programming through 26- and 32-inch<br />
flat-screen TV's, but interactive gateways<br />
to myriad healthcare resources related to<br />
the patient’s stay, like patient education<br />
videos and clinicians’ bios. Families no longer<br />
have to rely on printed materials for information<br />
about the hospital, their child’s<br />
care and their care team. Through TigrNet,<br />
a digital carousel of the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>’s<br />
expansive services are at their fingertips and<br />
a click away.<br />
“You can think of TigrNet as an instant<br />
patient portal to all of our amenities, resources<br />
and services,” says Tucker. “Patients<br />
have access to the Internet, e-mail<br />
and gaming using their television as the<br />
monitor, to their CaringBridge page for<br />
notes from friends and family at home, or<br />
to their patient education page where they<br />
can view videos prescribed by their clinician.<br />
All they have to do is click and watch,<br />
and they can leave their laptop or digital<br />
device at home.”<br />
When patients turn TigrNet on, Tucker<br />
explains, they’ll enter a personalized welcome<br />
page with their name, date and room<br />
number, and a customized <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s<br />
portal layered deep with resources<br />
and services specific to the hospital. They’ll<br />
see icons for access to basic TV, Internet,<br />
hospital services, and patient educa-<br />
38 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
Navigation tool in hand, television services coordinator tria tucker demonstrates<br />
the interactive tigrNet system now being used in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
tion. Rather than leaf through multiple<br />
brochures or a heavy hotel-like concierge<br />
guidebook in their room, patients navigate<br />
digital pages via a wireless keyboard or a<br />
hand-held nurse-call device at their bedside.<br />
And no instruction booklet needed. In the<br />
new hospital, customer service representatives<br />
familiarize patients and families to the<br />
system.<br />
While the interactive system offers an<br />
array of entertainment options, Director<br />
of Patient/Family and Visitor Services<br />
Mary Margaret Jacobs points to its ability<br />
to push tailored “on-demand” educational<br />
materials to the patient as its greatest value.<br />
TigrNet offers over 200 videos on subjects<br />
ranging from managing a chronic disease<br />
to coping with your hospital stay. In a patient-<br />
and family-centered approach, the<br />
system also offers care-team pages to patients,<br />
putting a face on their healthcare<br />
providers.<br />
“So when a person on your medical<br />
team comes through the door,” Tucker<br />
explains, “you’ll know that person’s name<br />
and face, and their role on your team.”<br />
In the future, TigrNet may offer virtual<br />
access to a variety of hospital services, including<br />
Child Life, dietary, guest services,<br />
housekeeping, pastoral care, and pharmacy.<br />
Real-time patient/family surveys<br />
may be another application, allowing staff<br />
to respond to concerns pre-discharge. n<br />
—GL
<strong>Meals</strong> <strong>“at</strong> <strong>Your</strong><br />
<strong>request”</strong><br />
A nEw CULinARY wind is blowing at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>.<br />
Now in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, patients<br />
and families may order food a la carte and<br />
have it delivered to the bedside between the hours<br />
of 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. daily. The new on-demand<br />
dining service, “At <strong>Your</strong> Request,” is designed to<br />
improve both patients’ nutrition—and subsequently<br />
health outcomes—and families’ hospital<br />
experience. Pediatric patients are able to eat when<br />
they’re hungry and to choose from a child-friendly<br />
menu that includes pasta dishes, chicken tenders,<br />
cheese quesadillas, salads, and cold cereals.<br />
How does it work? Patients or their caretakers<br />
place orders over the phone to a nutrition call center,<br />
where trained operators with access to patients’<br />
nutrition information assist them, either taking orders<br />
or offering alternatives if, for example, a patient<br />
is on an all-liquid diet or a sodium-restricted one.<br />
A service of the Department of Food and Clinical<br />
Nutrition at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>, “At <strong>Your</strong> Request”<br />
uses Sodexo’s menu management software, which<br />
automates patients’ nutrition records and clinically<br />
prescribed diet plans.<br />
The restaurant-style meals are prepared in a new<br />
hospital kitchen, overseen by the executive chef of<br />
patient services at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>, Jakob Fatica,<br />
and delivered by clinical nutrition assistants. “For<br />
our pediatric patients, meals will become a means<br />
for choice in an environment that is otherwise very<br />
structured,” says Project Manager Julie Branham,<br />
in the Department of Food and Clinical Nutrition.<br />
Parents or visitors are able to call in their own<br />
food orders, and have “guest trays” delivered to a<br />
patient’s room for a nominal fee. This<br />
allows them to remain with a child or<br />
enjoy a meal with him or her. Also,<br />
nurses continue to provide after-hour<br />
snacks and meals for hungry children.<br />
Nutrition Services keeps unit pantries<br />
and freezers stocked with food popular<br />
with children, like Lunchables and<br />
breakfast burritos. n —WS<br />
Patient<br />
services<br />
executive Chef<br />
Jakob Fatica<br />
oversees "at<br />
<strong>Your</strong> request."<br />
Inside Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong> <strong>Center</strong> | Patient Amenities<br />
“I’ve learned that one of the most crucial requirements as a librarian in a special<br />
library like ours is to follow the needs of the borrower and to be very aware<br />
of where they are emotionally.” – Gwen rosen, Childen’s <strong>Center</strong> librarian<br />
Reading by Skylight<br />
viSiTORS TO THE CHiLDREn’S and family resource library<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> enter a sky-lit world<br />
designed to encourage exploration and contemplation,<br />
notes librarian Gwen Rosen.<br />
“We’re pleased to be in a new, fresh space, and one<br />
with a skylight,” says Rosen. “Walking into our beautiful<br />
new library is kind of a therapeutic experience and a very<br />
welcoming one.”<br />
And her role once patients arrive? “I’ve learned that<br />
one of the most crucial requirements as a librarian in a<br />
special library like ours is to follow the needs of the borrower<br />
and to be very aware of where they are emotionally,”<br />
says Rosen.<br />
Adjoining the new library is the new children's meditation<br />
room, a calming space that can be arranged for<br />
gatherings, individual prayer or pastoral care for families.<br />
“A spiritual place makes sense to a child,” says Ty<br />
Crowe, director of pastoral care at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>, “and<br />
this one has been designed with children’s spiritual needs<br />
in mind.” n —WS<br />
Summer 2012 39
People&Philanthropy | Section Index<br />
42 A vision Fulfilled<br />
43 Stalwart Supporters<br />
45 A Place for Play<br />
46 A niCU Like none Other<br />
people&philanthropy<br />
Joining ribbon-cutter and patient<br />
Gavin Michel-Baird on stage are, left<br />
to right, ronald r. Peterson, president<br />
of the <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital,<br />
united arab emirates President<br />
sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan,<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
donors Michael Bloomberg and his<br />
sister, Marjorie tiven, at right.<br />
40 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
a dedication<br />
For the Future<br />
By Gary Logan and Wendell smith<br />
Spotlights and studio lights overhead and jumbo screens lining<br />
a stage? Strolling musicians and ribbon dancers? Smiling men,<br />
women and children seemingly walking a red carpet? The making<br />
of a Hollywood film? A movie premier, perhaps? The grand<br />
opening of a theme park?<br />
Maybe a little bit of each and a whole lot more. This was about<br />
a big production, as well as a premier of sorts, and an opening,<br />
though not of a new theme park but of the state-of-the-art Charlotte<br />
R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> and neighboring Sheikh<br />
Zayed Tower. A more promising future for children’s healthcare<br />
was the theme here at the official dedication April 12, and the<br />
faculty and staff, dignitaries and donors, patients and families<br />
had been waiting a long time for this moment.<br />
“People are so happy and excited, I think it’s wonderful,” said<br />
Pediatric Residency Program Director Julia McMillan. “It’s the<br />
culmination of a long process.”<br />
“It’s nice,” added pediatric gastroenterologist Maria Oliva-<br />
Hemker, “to finally see a facility as good as the people working<br />
here for our patients.”<br />
One of those patients, 9-year-old Gavin Michel-Baird, was<br />
among the first speakers. “When I was 9 months old, I was really,<br />
really sick, but my parents found the GI department here<br />
and because of that I’m not only here but I’m great,” he said.<br />
“The new Children’s <strong>Center</strong> will make it even better for kids and<br />
their families,” he added, introducing New York Mayor Michael<br />
Bloomberg, a <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> graduate and the son of the late<br />
Charlotte R. Bloomberg.<br />
People&Philanthropy<br />
With the sounds of music and “lights, cameras, action” in the air, Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
faculty and staff, dignitaries and donors, patients and families celebrate the opening of<br />
The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
“That the Children’s <strong>Center</strong> will bear the name of my mother<br />
is truly gratifying,” Bloomberg said. “My mother would want<br />
great advances in medicine and a whole bunch of children over<br />
the years walking out with a whole new lease on life.”<br />
Bloomberg went on to describe the new building as a worldclass<br />
hospital that would tie research, teaching and clinical care<br />
even more closely together at <strong>Hopkins</strong> and lead the way in defining<br />
new standards of care. Pointing to the building’s stimulating<br />
and soothing design, he added, “I don’t often give speeches in<br />
front of a pair of colorful rhinos. It is the signature defining<br />
touches from the great designer Robert Israel, among other artists<br />
represented here, who have all contributed to a unique and<br />
uplifting environment of support and healing.”<br />
Soon after local musicians and high school choirs filled the<br />
stage with dignitaries and donors as they unfolded a long blue<br />
and green ribbon representing Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> and<br />
the Zayed Tower. Then, using the dissecting scissors used by<br />
“Blue Baby” operation collaborator Vivien Thomas, Gavin cut<br />
the ribbon, sending ribbons across the stage and into the audience<br />
with the announcement that “The doors are now open.”<br />
Watching from the audience, Assistant Director of Pediatric<br />
Nursing Dawn Luzetsky said, “All the hard work we put into this<br />
building is now a reality.”<br />
Pediatrician and donor Lawrence Pakula added, “There’s so<br />
much for the future here. I’m glad I’m alive to see this day. I<br />
could never have imagined this.”<br />
Who could? n<br />
Summer 2012 41
People&Philanthropy | Funding a Vision<br />
A vision Fulfilled, a Promise kept<br />
wE GivE THAnkS for the generations of medical luminaries<br />
who have made <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong> among<br />
the best in the world for sick and injured children, and<br />
to the philanthropists—large and small—who have supported<br />
and sustained them, and those in their care. As<br />
we enter a new era in a new home, The Charlotte R.<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, we recognize the individuals,<br />
families, corporations, financial institutions, communities<br />
and supportive boards that joined forces with<br />
leadership to build a facility that once again matches the<br />
world-class pediatric medicine that <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> has<br />
pioneered since 1912.<br />
When told in 1956 that the new director of the Department of<br />
Pediatrics, Robert Cooke, M.D., was going to build a new children’s<br />
hospital at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> to replace its aging 1912 Harriet<br />
Lane Home for Invalid Children, pediatric psychiatrist Leo<br />
Kanner famously replied, “That’s what they told me in 1929.”<br />
That was around the time he was recruited to <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
to develop the nation’s first program in child psychiatry.<br />
The opening of The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
in May 2012 fulfilled promises to a new generation of <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> faculty and staff for a modern facility that matched<br />
the caliber of medicine practiced in the building that Cooke,<br />
indeed, helped make a reality in 1964: The Children’s Medical<br />
& Surgical <strong>Center</strong> (CMSC). Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> grew<br />
out of a need recognized decades earlier, too.<br />
By the 1980’s, the practice of pediatric medicine, in all its<br />
modern complexities, had outgrown the space allotted and de-<br />
42 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
donors, patient families, faculty and staff<br />
attended the 2006 groundbreaking for<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
signed for in the CMSC, a model of its time. Dramatic advances<br />
in care and technology were necessitating ongoing renovations<br />
and retrofits of outmoded patient rooms and units.<br />
At an annual leadership strategy meeting at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> in<br />
the early 1990s, Director of Child Life Jerriann Wilson illustrated<br />
the struggles families, too, faced in CMSC. She presented a video<br />
of its cramped and noisy units and semi-private patients rooms,<br />
never designed for the modern volume of medical technology<br />
and monitors, or to accommodate families’ emotional needs for<br />
privacy or control in the hospital environment. “For us, it was like<br />
a light bulb came on, and we saw that we had to act,” says <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s Administrator Edward Chambers, recalling<br />
the video, “and to find funding to make it possible.”<br />
So he and <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong> Director Frank Oski,<br />
a fierce advocate for a new facility, set out to find potential<br />
sponsors. Oski’s efforts were cut short by cancer, which forced<br />
upon him an early retirement in 1995. <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Pediatric<br />
Hematologist George Dover became Oski’s successor in 1996.<br />
Dover, who had trained and practiced in CMSC, was well aware<br />
of its physical shortcomings by any modern American standard.<br />
A year later, he and the new chief executive for <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Medicine, Edward D. Miller, led an institution-wide push to<br />
engage a planner and develop a specific scenario for a new children’s<br />
hospital. Locations were generally agreed on and incorporated<br />
into a Campus Redevelopment Plan.<br />
Illustrative of the famous <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> collaborations in<br />
adult and pediatric medicine, the new Children’s <strong>Center</strong> would<br />
share its foundations with a new adjacent adult cardiac and<br />
critical care tower. In 2006 ground was broken. The next year,<br />
construction began on a parcel of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> property, near<br />
the footprint of the old Harriet Lane Home. n
in addition to our<br />
naming donor, the<br />
following were<br />
leaders in giving<br />
to The Charlotte<br />
R. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
Alex. Brown & Sons Charitable<br />
Foundation<br />
Mayer M. and william C. Baker<br />
Dana and Albert R. Broccoli<br />
Charitable Foundation<br />
The Bunting Family Foundation<br />
Children’s Cancer Foundation, inc.<br />
Donna R. and Bradley E. Chipps, M.D.<br />
Clayton Baker Trust<br />
The Clayton Fund<br />
Constellation Energy<br />
irene and John De Luca<br />
Rosetta and Matt Devito<br />
Janet E. and Edward k. Dunn, Jr.<br />
Eliasberg Family Foundation<br />
Food Lion<br />
The Robert Garrett Fund for the<br />
Surgical Treatment of Children<br />
Meri and Phil Gibbs<br />
Harriet Lane Home Foundation<br />
Hospital For Consumptives of<br />
Maryland (Eudowood)<br />
Jacobson Family<br />
Stuart & Lynn Janney and Bessemer<br />
Trust Company, nA<br />
Robert and Janet Jacapraro<br />
A.B. krongard<br />
Milton A. and Harriet F. Laitman<br />
Rand R. and Raymond A.<br />
Mason<br />
Anne M. Murphy, M.D., and<br />
Lawrence M. nogee, M.D.<br />
Sutland/Pakula Family<br />
Carmine v. Petrone<br />
nancy and Morris w. Offit<br />
Sadie’s Gift<br />
Mamie and Louis A. Sarkes, Jr.<br />
Sherry C. and Richard L. Sharp<br />
Molly and Mayo Shattuck<br />
Outback Steakhouse<br />
Turock Family Foundation<br />
Family and Friends of Sara<br />
Michele wilhide<br />
The women’s Board of The<br />
<strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital<br />
Lockhart vaughan Foundation<br />
wells Fargo Foundation<br />
Judith & M. Richard wyman<br />
100th anniversary<br />
Celebrating a Century of Care<br />
People&Philanthropy | Funding a Vision<br />
A hundred years ago, <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>, first hospital for children opened. The<br />
Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children was named for its benefactress,<br />
Harriet Lane <strong>Johns</strong>ton, who with her husband Henry <strong>Johns</strong>ton, a Baltimore<br />
banker, bequeathed funds to establish a hospital for chronically ill children.<br />
Their own sons died in childhood from then untreatable rheumatic heart<br />
disease. Since the Lane first opened its doors at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital,<br />
Nov. 21, 1912, pediatric medicine at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> has been translating<br />
laboratory science and clinical observation into groundbreaking therapies<br />
and discoveries for children. <strong>Hopkins</strong> pediatric research clinicians were instrumental<br />
in ending the childhood scourge that cut short the <strong>Johns</strong>ton<br />
children’s lives. n —WS<br />
Corporations and Community Groups<br />
Stalwart Supporters<br />
When Kids Helping <strong>Hopkins</strong> held its annual Kilometers for Kids 2K/5K<br />
walk/run for <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong> in April 2012, more than<br />
150 children and adults turned out for the latest in the school-based philanthropy.<br />
Since it was launched in 1994 by Hernwood<br />
Elementary music teacher Anita Rozenel and her<br />
husband, thousands of school-age children, their<br />
families and neighbors have hosted runs, bake<br />
sales, contests and more, raising more than $1.4<br />
million for the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
Additonal groups and corporations recognized—on<br />
a plaque in Bloomberg <strong>Children's</strong><br />
<strong>Center</strong>—for their contributions of $1 million<br />
and more to the hospital over the years are Children’s<br />
Miracle Network (CMN), WMAR-TV<br />
ABC2, CBS Radio's Mix 106.5 FM, Carroll<br />
Independent Fuel, Giant Food, Martin’s<br />
Food, Wal-Mart, Rite Aid,<br />
WaWa, Credit Unions for Kids<br />
and Griffith Energy Services, Inc.<br />
Their fundraising has supported<br />
the programs and services that<br />
improve the lives of <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong> pediatric patients<br />
and their families.<br />
“We are in their debt,” says<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> Director<br />
George Dover. “They have<br />
been stalwart supporters and the<br />
foundation upon which many<br />
support services here have been<br />
built.” n —WS<br />
anita rozenel, a music teacher at Hernwood elementary<br />
school in Baltimore, with her husband,<br />
sam, founded Kids Helping <strong>Hopkins</strong>, a school-based<br />
program which has raised more than $1.4 million<br />
for the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
Summer 2012 43
People&Philanthropy | Dedication Gala<br />
Funding the vision: A decade of<br />
philanthropic support is celebrated<br />
at donor galas and garden<br />
dedications, among other events.<br />
In 2003, <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> presented a certificate-of-need to<br />
the State of Maryland. “The need for academic medical centers<br />
to grow was apparent,” says <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
Director George Dover. “Yet our buildings were mid-20th<br />
century or earlier vintage. We had nowhere to go but new.”<br />
They presented plans, along with the financial justification for<br />
a new building, and received state approval that year, as well as<br />
significant funding. For Children’s <strong>Center</strong> and <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Medicine, the race was on for the private funding that would help<br />
make construction a reality. In the end, philanthropic contributions<br />
provided more than a third of the funding for the project.<br />
By the time the Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> and companion<br />
adult tower opened in May 2012, they cost more than $1.1 billion.<br />
Philanthropic contributions took many forms, including a<br />
pledge in 2003 by The Women’s Board at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Hospital,<br />
the largest in its nearly 80-year history. Two of the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> boards, The Robert Garrett Fund for the Surgical<br />
Treatment of Children and The Hospital for the Consumptives<br />
of Maryland (Eudowood) each pledged, and the third, The Harriet<br />
Lane Home for Invalid Children of Baltimore City, pledged<br />
as well. A landmark gift from the Children’s Cancer Foundation<br />
and founder Shirley Howard contributed to support a state-ofthe-art<br />
oncology inpatient unit, this in addition to contributions<br />
since 1979 to update CMSC’s pediatric oncology and neuro-<br />
<strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> trustee Mark rubenstein, with his wife, robin,<br />
was honored with the naming of the two-story infusion suite<br />
after him in the new outpatient pediatric oncology unit in<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> (see page 31).<br />
44 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
<strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Medicine trustee Mayo a. shattuck III, who with<br />
his wife Molly supported the shattuck Family Pediatric Burn unit<br />
in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, Maryland’s designated burn<br />
center for children (see page 33).<br />
surgery units. The Alex Brown and Sons Charitable Foundation<br />
contributed, too.<br />
“The Children’s’ <strong>Center</strong> has always been there when colleagues,<br />
their children and the community have needed it,” said<br />
a trustee of the venerable institution’s charitable foundation in<br />
2003. “We want to help ensure it always will be.”<br />
A large gift from the Sutland and Pakula family (who asked<br />
to remain anonymous at the time) to help support the neonatal<br />
intensive care unit in the new building, brought the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> halfway to its philanthropic goal for financing the building.<br />
Family and corporate gifts continued. Many supported playrooms,<br />
consultation rooms, a Great Room for kids, family lounges, the<br />
pediatric burn unit, the oncology infusion suite, operating rooms,<br />
gardens, libraries, conference rooms and more. n —WS<br />
William C. Baker (right), CeO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, with<br />
his wife, Mayer, and dean of the Bloomberg school of Public Health<br />
Michael Klag. the two-story “Great room” in Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> is a gift from the Bakers, the Clayton Fund, Inc., the Clayton<br />
Baker trust and the Lockhart Vaughan Foundation, Inc. (see page 37).
Sara’s Garden<br />
will be a place<br />
of peace and<br />
hope for<br />
families.<br />
—STeVe wILHIDe<br />
In the courtyard entrance to<br />
The Charlotte R. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> and the<br />
Sheikh Zayed Tower are a series<br />
of gardens, tied together by<br />
walkways, benches, a reflecting<br />
pool and waterfall. A gift from<br />
longtime Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
supporter Harriet Laitman and<br />
named in memory of her late<br />
husband and avid gardener<br />
Milton A. Laitman, the gardens<br />
help counterbalance the<br />
stresses of illness and hospitalization<br />
for patients, families<br />
and friends. Designed by landscape<br />
architects from Olin, the<br />
Milton A. and Harriet F. Laitman<br />
Memorial Garden was<br />
dedicated in May 2012.<br />
People&Philanthropy | Green Space<br />
Gardens to Calm the Soul<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
director George<br />
dover and his wife<br />
Barbara with Harriet<br />
Laitman, center, a<br />
longtime supporter<br />
of pediatric medicine<br />
at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>.<br />
at the dedication<br />
of “sara’s Garden,”<br />
June 8, Cheryl and<br />
steve Wilhide with<br />
daughters Paige and<br />
rachel.<br />
A Place for Play in Sara’s Garden<br />
When their toddler, Sara, died in 1989 of complications related<br />
to her congenital heart condition, parents Steve and Cheryl Wilhide<br />
vowed to keep alive the love Sara gave and the hope she<br />
inspired. In the Children’s <strong>Center</strong> pediatric intensive care unit,<br />
where Sara was treated, they created a room for families, which<br />
they kept stocked with everything from coffee to toothpaste, to<br />
create a respite, a place of normalcy. And now, to help Sara’s<br />
message of hope live on, the Wilhides gave The Charlotte R.<br />
Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong> a whimsical garden for children.<br />
Located in its inner courtyard, nestled between the new and old<br />
buildings, “Sara’s Garden” is inspired by her favorite book “The<br />
Little Prince.” Designed by Olin, it offers little volcanoes for<br />
climbing and birds that children can move along a track.<br />
Summer 2012 45
People&Philanthropy | Funding a Vision<br />
at the dedication of the sutland/Pakula Family Newborn<br />
Critical Care <strong>Center</strong> on March 6, from left to right, <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> director George dover, <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
Hospital and Health system President ronald r. Peterson,<br />
donors sheila s. Pakula and Lawrence Pakula, and dean of<br />
the Medical Faculty and CeO of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Medicine<br />
edward d. Miller.<br />
A niCU Like none Other<br />
the sutland/Pakula Family Newborn Critical Care <strong>Center</strong>,<br />
the state-of-the-art, 45-bed neonatal intensive care unit<br />
(NICu) in Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>, honors the generosity<br />
of the families who made it possible. the unit features<br />
a host of family-friendly amenities and all private rooms,<br />
a first for NICu patients at <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong>. It also houses<br />
a Neurosciences Intensive Care Nursery, providing comprehensive<br />
assessment and treatment for newborns who<br />
are at high risk of neurological injury or who have clinical<br />
evidence of developmental brain abnormalities. additional<br />
gifts include an endowment to support faculty research and<br />
a professorship. Josephine and Frank sutland, d.d.s, were<br />
longtime supporters of the <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> university and its<br />
school of Medicine. the sutlands’ daughter, sheila Pakula,<br />
and her husband, Lawrence Pakula, are also generous supporters,<br />
particularly in the area of child health.<br />
46 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org
A Room with a view for Teens<br />
Chairman of Offit Capital advisors Morris W. Offit, former<br />
Chairman of the Board of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> university, and his<br />
wife, Nancy, contributed funds for a playroom on the adolescent<br />
unit. the Nancy s. Offit teen room includes a pool<br />
table, basketball net and air hockey game as recreation for<br />
teens well enough to travel from their rooms.<br />
People&Philanthropy | Funding a Vision<br />
Supporting State-of-the-Art Surgery<br />
robert Garrett, IV, is a board member of the robert Garrett Fund for the<br />
surgical treatment of Children, which has allocated millions to support <strong>Johns</strong><br />
<strong>Hopkins</strong>’ pediatric general surgery program and the construction of both the<br />
Children’s Medical & surgical <strong>Center</strong> and Bloomberg Children’s <strong>Center</strong>.<br />
Summer 2012 47
Family Matters<br />
Ask Parents<br />
and They<br />
will Build It<br />
For parents of Children’s <strong>Center</strong> patients, the<br />
last thing they wanted to hear as plans got<br />
underway for The Charlotte r. Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> was “Build it and they will come.”<br />
The maxim Pediatrics Administrator Ted Chambers<br />
heard was, “Ask us and we’ll help build it.”<br />
So he did just that through a series of surveys,<br />
focus groups, and interactive information<br />
sessions with parents and members<br />
of the Family Advisory Council (FAC).<br />
Wanting abundant information, he asked<br />
only one question—What do you want in<br />
a new children’s hospital?<br />
The answers were many, including an<br />
accessible children’s hospital with a grand<br />
entrance, a colorful façade with soft curves,<br />
and spacious family lounges with lots of<br />
natural light. An aesthetic warm and healing<br />
environment with fountains, gardens<br />
and modern art was on the list, too, as well<br />
as family amenities like kitchenettes, laundry<br />
and shower facilities on each floor. The<br />
rooms should be private with sleep sofas,<br />
and intensive care units like the NICU and<br />
PICU should offer parents sleeping accommodations,<br />
too. And greater dining options.<br />
One parent summed it up: “The Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> should not feel like a hospital<br />
but rather a place where children and<br />
families can feel comfortable.”<br />
Looking at Bloomberg Children’s<br />
48 HOPKINS CHILDreN’S | hopkinschildrens.org<br />
“ the colorful décor,<br />
the open views of<br />
Baltimore and the<br />
harbor from the<br />
inpatient floors help<br />
you forget you’re in<br />
a hospital.” – arON<br />
KatZ, FaC MeMBer<br />
aNd PareNt<br />
by Gary Logan<br />
<strong>Center</strong> today, one might think parents<br />
wrote up the architectural plans, donned<br />
hard hats and constructed the new building<br />
themselves. Indeed, parents provided<br />
some valuable insights, but for the most<br />
part their wish list was the wish list of<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong> leaders.<br />
“They were very good meetings and we<br />
did have very forthcoming parent input,”<br />
says Patient- and Family-<strong>Center</strong>ed Care<br />
Coordinator Barbara Hall, recalling parent<br />
focus groups. “For us, it was a matter<br />
of hearing their voice.”<br />
Chambers agrees, recalling a mom who<br />
started to cry when he told her focus group<br />
“we see you as our partners.” Unpredictably,<br />
he adds, such experiences enhanced<br />
the relationship with parents.<br />
“She had never heard that before. She<br />
never felt she was anything other than<br />
someone receiving information,” Chambers<br />
says. “Those were the kinds of experiences<br />
that gave us the ability to not just talk<br />
to parents but to listen to parents, too.”<br />
Such experiences also helped prompt<br />
the Children’s <strong>Center</strong>’s 2007 patient- and<br />
family-centered care initiative, which led<br />
to the creation of a new FAC and achievements<br />
like family rounds and a full-time<br />
parent advisor on staff. While families have<br />
always had a presence at the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>, Chambers notes, never before had<br />
their ideas been solicited, considered and<br />
incorporated into policy to this extent.<br />
“We’ve had quite a lot of impact on<br />
operations and how families interact with<br />
staff,” says Pam Griffin, the Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>’s full-time Parent Advisor.<br />
“Now family-centered care is in the<br />
forefront of an unbelievable number of<br />
conversations each day,” adds Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong> Director George Dover. “More<br />
and more we’re putting ourselves in the<br />
shoes of parents before making decisions.”<br />
So, what do these parents see in Bloomberg<br />
Children’s <strong>Center</strong>? “Being able to stay<br />
with your child in the intensive care unit<br />
is a tremendous blessing,” says FAC parent<br />
member Debbie Burton. “It’s so important<br />
to be able to be near your child at a time<br />
when he or she is most critical and scared<br />
and needs the reassurance of a parent.”<br />
“It’s beautiful, clean and bright with<br />
an abundance of natural light, and I love<br />
the original works of art,” says Howard<br />
County parent Anne Wills. “I think the<br />
building inspires hope and healing.”<br />
Adds FAC parent member Aron Katz,<br />
“The colorful décor, the open views of Baltimore<br />
and the harbor from the inpatient<br />
floors help you forget you’re in a hospital.” n
A Quieter, Homier Home<br />
By Rebecca Manning<br />
I was the first patient on the<br />
old adolescent unit to move<br />
into Bloomberg Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>. When I saw my<br />
new room, I was speechless.<br />
I didn’t expect it to be that<br />
awesome.<br />
The amenities are far better, even the food. You<br />
can mix and match and order what you like when<br />
you want it. And the technology is awesome. There’s<br />
a flat-screened TV with Netflix and access to the<br />
Web and, of course, Facebook. A special TV feature<br />
shows your care team, when they’re on service and<br />
what they do.<br />
In the old semiprivate rooms, you heard everything<br />
that was going on—conversations, alerts,<br />
monitors—24 hours a day. It was not a restful environment<br />
for any of us. But now all the rooms are<br />
private with sofa beds for parents. My mom says<br />
she sleeps better, too. It’s much quieter and homier<br />
here, which will enhance care.<br />
We just couldn’t get over how smooth the patient<br />
move was. My mother had joked before that we<br />
should set up lawn chairs to watch the chaos of people<br />
and equipment. But there was none of that. It was all<br />
choreographed and well organized. And <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong><br />
had presents for us. I liked the blanket, the little<br />
bag of toiletries and the book, “The Secret Garden,”<br />
which I’ll have to read soon.<br />
Rebecca Manning, 18, is a student at Stevenson University<br />
in Baltimore County. After college, she wants to attend<br />
medical school and create documentaries to help healthcare<br />
providers better understand what life is like for patients with<br />
chronic conditions.<br />
I had come to <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> two weeks earlier with severe chest and abdominal pain. My IV<br />
line had been bent in a car accident and was causing all sorts of problems.<br />
I have a condition known as POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) and a host<br />
of other conditions, including ankylosing spondylitis, endometriosis, gastroparesis and scoliosis.<br />
My doctor, Peter Rowe, is fantastic. He makes me laugh and really listens to me. He specializes<br />
in diagnosing and managing complicated conditions like mine, so I feel more comfortable when<br />
he’s around. He always finds an answer. n<br />
Patient Voices<br />
SummER 2012 49
<strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s<br />
Office of Communications & Public Affairs<br />
901 S.Bond Street / Suite 550<br />
Baltimore, MD 21231<br />
Build their bright future.<br />
Create your lasting legacy.<br />
For nearly 100 years, the physicians and scientists of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s <strong>Center</strong><br />
have pushed the boundaries of pediatric medicine and developed world-class care for<br />
the sickest children and their families.<br />
And generous supporters have been there with us every step of the way, beginning with<br />
Baltimore banker Henry <strong>Johns</strong>ton and his wife, Harriet Lane <strong>Johns</strong>ton, who established<br />
the first children’s hospital affiliated with an academic institution through a gift from<br />
their estate.<br />
If you also believe that all children deserve a bright and healthy future, there are many<br />
ways to create your own legacy to support the mission of <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Children’s<br />
<strong>Center</strong>. Some, like a bequest, don’t even require you to part with assets now; others<br />
provide you or a loved one with guaranteed income for life.<br />
Contact Richard Letocha in the <strong>Johns</strong> <strong>Hopkins</strong> Office of Gift Planning to learn more.<br />
410-516-7954 | 800-548-1268 | giftplanning@jhu.edu | giving.jhu.edu/giftplanning<br />
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