The new Outpatient Center in Redwood City is 360,000 sq. ft. — a bit more than eight acres, or six football fields. The building was originally the headquarters of the now-defunct Excite@Home, a company that offered high speed Internet access and a search engine.
Concierge Services at the Outpatient Center will include interpreters (available for more than 175 languages), international medical services to assist patients from outside the U.S., Health Insurance Counseling & Advocacy Program (HICAP), and patient representation staff to assist patients and their families and on-line access to the Stanford Health Library.
Concierge Services will also provide information on local restaurants, shopping, lodging and transportation. Faxing/copying services, on-line access and ATM machines are also available.
Guest Services offers a comprehensive array of programs and services that are dedicated to making sure your experience at Stanford Hospital & Clinics is as comfortable as we can make it. Whatever you need, we will respond as quickly as we can, and always with a smile. No request is too large for our staff to address or too small for you to mention. Call us at (650) 498-3333.
All equipment in the Sleep Clinic's sleeping rooms is covered by headboards or hidden in cupboards to reduce the clinical look of the rooms. The mattresses are high density foam to support the most comfortable sleep possible. Every room has a chair that folds out into a bed, for family or friend. The rooms face Highway 101, so every measure possible was made to shut out noise. Architects created a double-wall system on the exterior walls of the sleeping rooms and took other measures, like those used in sound recording studios, to block sound transmission. Between the drywall and studs, for example, sound-absorbing insulation and metal separators block vibrations. Vibration isolation gaskets were used to seal off other vibration pathways. The MRIs, located below the sleep rooms, were structurally isolated.
In each Outpatient Center clinic waiting area, patients will know if their doctors are running on time or are behind in their schedule by checking a digital whiteboard. The board will track each doctor and indicate when the board was last updated.
When family and friends are waiting to pick up a patient after a completed surgery, they can check that patient's status on a 60-inch, wall-mounted monitor just outside the Café. To protect patient privacy, each patient will be given a special number, which will appear on the monitor instead of a name.
Within a few years, the Outpatient Center will be joined by Stanford University facilities planned for the surrounding 35 acres. Stanford University has also chosen Redwood City as the location for its first large-scale, major move of administrative and support functions away from the core academic campus in Palo Alto. The University has begun the process of seeking required approvals from the City of Redwood City to build up to 1.5 million square feet on the property, with the first phase of approximately 500,000 square feet projected to start construction in 2010, with initial occupancy in 2012.
“The University is committed to creating a campus-like environment in Redwood City,” said Steven Elliott, Stanford's managing director for development projects. “Increased landscaping, attractive work environments and a pedestrian-friendly approach are guiding our design and planning. The campus will also have the capability to handle the University's long-term growth, he added.
Warming the healing environment with site-specific, museum-quality art, Stanford's Art Commission selected more than 100 watercolors, lithographs, woodcuts, photography and sculpture appropriate to each of the Center's clinics and public areas.
The environment patients enter at the Outpatient Center will have the same uplifting artworks enjoyed by patients at the Hospital, and for the same reason. “Art connotes a sense of caring through a warm environment,” said Linda Meier, who chairs Stanford's Art Commission. “Whether at the Hospital or the Outpatient Center, art is an important part of the healing atmosphere we want to support.”
The Commission is a group of well-known collectors and artists whose selections for the Outpatient Center were attuned to specific clinics, public areas and gardens. “If we have a garden outside the window area, we will hang images of flowers or plants to carry that theme inside the building,” said Art Coordinator Linh Dang.
The Outpatient Center is the new home for the Pain Management Center, where, Dang said, “we put landscape images to help patients relax.” Images of athletes will take their place in the Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Clinic, she said.
Artists whose work is at the Outpatient Center include Maya Lin, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein. One of the most visible works is the heart-shaped “Siesta in the City,” a 400-pound glass sculpture donated to the Hospital by Victor and Thaderine MacFarlane. The heart was made by Brazilian artist, Sidnea D'Amico, who now lives in the Bay Area.
The Outpatient Center includes the following energy efficient items:
Motion sensors in many rooms shut off lights when they're not in use
The building's air is not re-circulated, but all fresh, to lower fan use and to reduce infection.
The bathrooms all have low-flow commodes that are lower in water use than required by national standards.
The water closets and lavatories all use infrared, battery-operated flush valves and faucets for a hands-free operation to reduce infection. The automatic system also conserves water.
The transformers, fans, pump motors, hot water boilers and the cooling-heating system are all highly energy efficient.
Transoms are used to bring daylight into clinical areas to reduce the need for artificial lighting.
Architects of the building and of its landscaping designed the Outpatient Center as a place where resources would be conserved and the greenery would be part of the Center's healing environment. Here are some highlights of those design and landscape features:
Even before Stanford's adaptive reuse of the building, local officials knew that storm water management was a problem. Several remedies address that challenge. In the courtyard that faces Broadway Street, a major thoroughfare in Redwood City, the earth was re-graded to encourage water absorption into the earth before it reaches the street.
At the center of the courtyard is crushed stone paving, again, to encourage absorption. Along the edges is decomposed granite, another material to enhance absorption.
A 15-foot-wide vegetated buffer strip directly adjacent to the street will also deter storm water from reaching the street's drains.
Plantings near the buildings have also been selected for the biofiltration abilities. Sedge, one of the primary plants, has deep roots and is known for taking pollutants out of water.
All the storm water drains near the building are fitted with special filters to remove heavy metals, oil and grease.
Two underground retention tanks able to hold about 130,000 gallons of storm water were installed to reduce flow at peak periods.
To reduce water use, landscape architects selected drought-resistant, native tree and plant species to be planted throughout the building's grounds: Coast Live Oak, California Sycamore, Western Redbud and Wild Lilac. Other trees and plants include Idaho Locust, Blue-eyed grass, Russian sage and creeping pink thyme. All lawns are planted with xeriscape land coverings.
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