2023PROJECT OF THE YEAR
Penn Medicine Pavilion: A Beacon of Hope
The Pavilion is a new, state-of-the-art inpatient building at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, which welcomed its first patients in October 2021. Since then, on any given day, hundreds of people – patients, staff, and visitors – come to the Pavilion for the world’s most advanced health care in a setting that inspires serenity and comfort.
In the center of a vibrant clinical and research campus, the Pavilion was designed to bring clinical care and research together, and to be a centerpiece of Penn Medicine’s world-class expertise in bold approaches to treating diseases. The 17-story building on Penn Medicine’s West Philadelphia campus, which includes 504 private patient rooms and 47 operating rooms, is an expanded footprint of HUP. The LEED-certified Pavilion houses inpatient care for cardiology and cardiac surgery, medical and surgical oncology, neurology and neurosurgery, thoracic, vascular and transplant surgery, and it is now home to HUP’s emergency department.
The Pavilion is poised to serve as a launch pad for Penn Medicine’s next generation of pioneering advances in patient care. The $1.6 billion facility — the culmination of years of planning and construction — represents the latest piece of a connected medical campus, which includes HUP, the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine for outpatient care, and the Smilow Center for Translational Research. It is the largest capital project in the University of Pennsylvania’s history, the largest hospital project in the Philadelphia region, and one of the largest in the United States.
Features of the Pavilion include:
- A “reinvented” Emergency Department designed to decrease wait times, speed diagnosis, and improve the care experience.
- Hybrid operating rooms that enable surgeons and physicians to work side-by-side and perform image-guided surgeries with greater precision.
- An advanced epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) and a human neurophysiology research lab, which will bring neuroscience research and neurological care closer together.
- IRIS — a 75-inch screen and smart board — installed in every patient room allows patients to review imaging and key information about their care with their physicians, nurses, and other providers. Through IRIS, patients also have greater control of their environment at their fingertips for lighting, shades, temperature, and more, so they can personalize the room to their comfort.
- Artwork to help create a healing environment, including a mural from Philadelphia-based artist Odili Donald Odita, along with the striking art installation designed by renowned artist and designer Maya Lin.
A “future-proof” building with flexibility to adapt to changing needs was the goal in designing the building. That flexibility was put to the test during the Pavilion’s first year of operation, as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 first surged within a few months of opening. To meet those patients’ needs, a unit in the building was converted to all negative-pressure rooms. But the future that the Pavilion heralds is truly just beginning.
