Loyola Completes Hospital Tower

Loyola University Health System completed its 170,000-sf hospital tower in Maywood, Ill., in early spring of 2008. The tower creates a new front entrance to the hospital campus through an atrium with an 18-ft waterfall. Housing 64 private patient rooms, the project features technologies including a pharmacy robot, a privacy-coded patient tracking system, and a $2.7 million 3T MRI. The Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, located on the first floor, includes eight interventional labs (four catheterization labs and four electrophysiology labs), private patient holding/recovery rooms, facilities for non-invasive cardiac and peripheral vascular diagnostics, and a magnetic-guided navigation system for the treatment of heart disorders. The tower also includes 12 operating rooms, a pathology laboratory, and a healing garden. Designed to foster a patient-and-family-centered model of healthcare, the smaller nursing stations are located outside patient rooms. The tower represents the completion of phase one of the hospital’s $120 million, four-phase expansion plan. Renovations to the existing hospital will continue through October 2009.