Beth Israel proposes new inpatient building; one goal is to provide more single-patient rooms

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center today filed plans with the BPDA to build a ten-story inpatient building on Brookline Avenue near the Riverway.

The medical center says the new building will be able to house up to 158 patients, although it adds that the total number of inpatient beds on its Longwood Medical Area campuses will only increase by about 89, because it will stop using some beds elsewhere. The building would also include rooms for operations and other medical procedures, conference rooms and a helipad, on land between the medical-center garage and the Rosenberg Building that is now occupied by driveways and large oxygen tanks.

The hospital said it needs the new space to provide additional rooms for single patients with more serious medical conditions:

BIDMC's Boston campus is the referral center for the sickest patients being cared for by BIDMC's network of health care providers. Due to the increasingly acute, complex needs of its patients, BIDMC needs more single-bedded patient rooms, more intensive care beds and expanded surgery and clinical support spaces that can support patient and family oriented, team-based care and improved technology. Currently only 34% of BIDMC's medical/surgical beds are in single-bedded rooms, which is well below other Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) in Boston, and BIDMC's inpatient beds operate at or above 85% occupancy over 88% of the time. Patients and families continue to request single rooms, and the seriously ill and often vulnerable patients and families BIDMC cares for have greater need for the quiet and respite of a single-bedded room than patients with fewer significant medical needs and other challenges. Single-bedded patient rooms help reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired infection, improve patient sleep and reduce stress for patients and their families. In addition BIDMC's existing operating rooms, diagnostic, procedural spaces, and healing and waiting areas are aged and undersized relative to current industry norms and regulatory requirements for new facilities.

The medical center said it's already begun work to relocate the driveways - which includes one for the emergency room.

BIDMC project notification form (25M PDF).