Penn State Hershey Medical Center

Women's Health Project

Following the opening of the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, Poltronieri Tang & Associates has completed a facilities feasibility study for comprehensive Mothers and Infants services at the Penn State Hershey Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (HMC) campus located in Hershey, PA.

Interactive planning sessions were held with clinical, academic, administrative, support services, and executive leadership stakeholders.  The planning process was successfully completed in just three months, and included:

• Development and adoption of a strategic vision statement, project goals, and quantifiable success metrics for all maternal and infant inpatient and outpatient services, including the clinical departments of Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) and Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI)
• Comprehensive review and analysis of national and regional “best practice” facilities and new models of care
• Recommendations on how these peer approaches can be best customized and implemented at HMC
• The development of incremental growth scenarios and associated lean key room count projections, and subsequent room by room space program for all projected services
• Current and future state nursing workshops which resulted in a series of operational recommendations that will guide the detailed design of the new facilities
• Floor plan options analyzing key planning issues, circulation routes and relationships and selection of a preferred plan options. 
• Scheduling, phasing, cost, and engineering analysis

A number of viable options were generated, evaluated, and ranked by the stakeholders.  The selected option creates a new designated entrance and specific brand identity for the birth service, providing a reserved patient drop-off area, priority “stork” parking, and clearly identified access route with theme-based way-finding signage and graphics, which significantly reduces the distance laboring women have to traverse to reach the birthing facility.