Inside Duke Medicine

Duke Medicine Pavilion: Positioning DUHS to meet pressing patient care needs

Major hospital expansion to meet pressing patient care needs

Duke University Hospital, as it has for more than 75 years, continues to attract patients from near and far. So many patients now flock to DUH for top-notch care that the hospital is often full.The hospital saw its last major expansion – Duke North – in 1980 and is now in need of an expansion in order to meet increased patient need.

So when the Duke Medicine Pavilion finally rises alongside it, DUH will get a major addition that will add 16 new operating suites and 160 critical care and intermediate care, or step-down, beds.

Scheduled to be completed in 2013, the new building also will provide a high-tech surgical platform in which Duke Medicine can advance its medical education programs, facilitate innovative research into surgical techniques and treatments, and provide the necessary capacity to meet surgical demands.

The Duke Medicine Pavilion, comprising approximately 580,000 square feet of space, will sit at the heart of the Duke University Medical Center. From top to bottom, it is being designed to most efficiently welcome and attend to Duke’s growing patient population.

Patients and visitors will be greeted in an inviting light-filled lobby. Nearby, current plans call for a patient resource center that will feature a health library, and a large, modern imaging center will provide a central, state-of-the-art location for patients needing MRI, CT and nuclear medicine – improving care and reducing patient transport distances.

On the third floor, a new intraoperative imaging system will allow access to the latest imaging tools right inside the new operating suites, allowing for an even higher level of surgical precision.

These new surgical suites will be especially important to Duke's mission of providing a rich and engaging learning experience for the more than 900 residents and fellows – including 200 focused on surgery – who make up one of the largest such surgery training programs in the United States.

“Duke’s surgical faculty are respected nationally, and in many cases internationally, and the demand for both specialty and subspecialty procedures – as well as procedures often considered less complicated – is exhausting our current facility,” said Danny O. Jacobs, M.D., MPH, the David C. Sabiston Jr. Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery. “The Duke Medicine Pavilion will be critically important to our ability to meet surgical demand and train the next generation of surgical leaders.”

Floors six, seven and eight will feature four 24-bed intensive care units and two 32-bed intermediate/step-down care units, with each room large enough to accommodate all the necessary clinical technology, as well as comfortable overnight space for a patient’s family member.

“Duke Medicine Pavilion is being shaped by patient needs and input from patients, physicians, nurses, technologists and others,” said hospital CEO Kevin Sowers, MSN, RN, FAAN. They have participated and will continue to participate in interactive design sessions with architects and engineers, he said.

For example, input from nurses inspired nurse break rooms that will have natural light and access to an outside area, extending Duke's commitment -- as seen in the courtyard project at DUH and the garden project at Duke Raleigh Hospital -- to provide natural spaces to employees, patients and visitors.

The Duke Medicine Pavilion will be in close proximity to the Cancer Center, another much-needed expansion to Duke’s ability to care for more and more patients. These two new facilities will be connected by a new climate-controlled concourse that will allow staff, patients and visitors to move more easily about the hospital and clinic complex without ever being exposed to inclement weather and while still allowing easy access to the outdoors.

“The Duke Medicine Pavilion and the new cancer center will allow Duke University Hospital to do more of what the Health System does best – delivering world-class care,” said William J. Fulkerson Jr., M.D., senior vice president for clinical affairs. Faculty and staff elsewhere in the health system, as well as nearby and regional hospitals wanting to transfer patients, will also benefit from greater capacity at DUH.

Planning and design work on the hospital expansion have been ongoing for several years, and this project is just the latest in a series of strategic DUHS investments across a wide portion of North Carolina.

The hospital expansion and new Cancer Center follow significant renovations at Duke Raleigh Hospital, the construction of the Duke Medicine Plaza for outpatient specialty care on the hospital campus in Raleigh, and the openings of Duke Medical Plazas in Morrisville, the Brier Creek community, north Raleigh and Knightdale. In Durham, a new 12-bed hospice facility and renovations of the Emergency Department at Durham Regional Hospital are similarly broadening the ways DUHS meets the needs of our ever-growing number of patients.