Improvements for Patients

More Efficient Adult Clinics Will Help More Patients

National Jewish Health is one of the world’s top medical institutions, providing highly specialized care that many patients cannot find elsewhere. Our pediatric and adult clinics provide high quality comprehensive evaluation and treatment to patients with respiratory, infectious, allergic and immunologic disorders. Patients come from all over the country seeking an accurate diagnosis and optimal therapy for their disease. Many of them come to National Jewish Health as a last resort, having been misdiagnosed or undiagnosed for years. Here they gain an accurate diagnosis, develop an understanding about their disease, learn how to manage their symptoms and regain control of their lives.

Over the last several years, we have renovated and expanded our pediatric clinics, positioning us to adequately care for our current and growing volume of young patients. Adult patient volume at National Jewish Health has exceeded our clinical capacity. The number of patient visits and the number of new patients has been steadily increasing and we predict six percent annual increases in patient volume over the next five years. Unlike many doctors and hospitals, we accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Thirty-four percent of our patients are free-care, Medicaid or Medicare.

National Jewish Health was originally conceived as an in-patient facility, but today almost all of our services are provided on an outpatient basis. To increase efficiency — and to save time for patients as well as doctors — we must reconfigure our space to better consolidate and integrate our services based on the outpatient model of care. The adult clinics will be expanded and designed for better flow, to offer an attractive and comfortable space for patients and their families.

The adult clinics will be located on the first floor. The new building and renovation of existing facilities will double our total square footage and significantly increase our clinical capacity. The first floor of the new building will allow us to expand our clinics for adult patients, providing 36 exam rooms and 12 other procedure and diagnostic rooms. The expansion will add approximately 12,500 square feet of space to the adult clinics for a total of 22,000 square feet, significantly increasing our patient-care capacity.

Our new patient numbers have had double-digit annual growth and our patient visits have increased 50 percent over the past four years. The expanded and renovated adult clinics will enable us to handle our growing patient population.

Larger Rehabilitation Area Will Help More Patients Cope With Chronic Illnesses

Rehabilitation care is vital to our patients, especially to those with chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and asthma, and to those with rheumatologic illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. We also see people who have been injured in car or workplace accidents. Our rehabilitation team includes physicians, specially training registered nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, recreational therapists, psychosocial clinicians and dietitians. The program includes medical evaluation and treatment, individual and group education, physical reconditioning, nutritional evaluation and psychosocial counseling to allow people to resume an active daily life, to live better and feel better. The specific goals of rehabilitation are to improve quality of life by decreasing symptoms and complications; encouraging self-management and control over daily functioning; improving physical conditioning and exercise performance; and improving emotional well-being and reducing hospitalizations.

To better serve patients, we will move the Gene and Ruth Posner Foundation’s Center for Pulmonary Rehabilitation to the second floor of the new building. Currently, our rehabilitation facility is located in the basement of the Andrew Goodman Building. The move will offer a more spacious, light-filled and appealing area for patients to learn how to incorporate exercise as a way to help manage their diseases and improve their quality of life.

The new 9,000-square-foot rehabilitation center (which will be 2,235 square feet larger than the Goodman location) will feature an open 2,175-square-foot gym, a conference room for meetings and conferring with patients, private treatment rooms, life skills therapy rooms, speech-therapy rooms and staff offices.

A new rehabilitation center will help more patients with chronic diseases, injuries or other conditions as they build lung function, gain mobility, manage pain and lead more satisfying lives.