Bradley Hospital opens new inpatient facility

Bradley Hospital opens new inpatient facility
(May 2009 Issue)

By Pamela Berard

Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island, the nation's first psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, opened a state-of-the-art inpatient facility in April, part of a campus-wide revitalization.

The two-story addition features 60 private rooms relocated from semi-private rooms in the hospital's 78-year-old main building.

The new addition houses child and adolescent inpatient programs for youth who suffer from serious disorders and are in need of short-term stabilization and treatment. Also based in the new facility will be the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities (CADD).

"Everyone is so excited. It is sort of a dream come true for the staff," says child psychologist Rowland Barrett, Ph.D., director of the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities. "We've always had an excellent reputation at Bradley Hospital and now our physical plant matches our reputation."

"The new wing is 44,000 square feet, which is triple the size of patient space that was available in the old hospital," Barrett says. "The new inpatient facility is dedicated entirely to patient space and patient activities. There are no offices located in the new space."

Patients and their families benefit from the privacy and comfort of single rooms, he says. In the old unit, the hospital could accommodate a patient who needed a single room, but that would mean they had one less bed to offer in that unit. Of the 60 beds in the new unit, 30 will be for adolescents, 15 for the autism and developmental disabilities center and 15 for children. Youth who stay at the inpatient facility come from across New England and the rest of the country, Barrett says. The autism and disabilities center works with agencies from 20 different states.

In addition to offering more space and privacy for patients, the unit features rooms with views of Narragansett Bay designed to accommodate therapeutic activities and family visits, aquariums and meeting spaces and an enclosed courtyard for children to spend time outdoors. "It doesn't feel like an institution at all," Barrett says.

"It doesn't look antiseptic. It's very inviting."

Safety precautions that staff took in the old building have been engineered into the new building. "Every possible safety feature that you can imagine has been incorporated into the design. It's really impressive," he says. "Everything is wireless in the new building. It's going to be very helpful as we pursue paperless, electronic medical records."

The second phase of the $31.1 million project will include remodeling of the original structure to accommodate expanded outpatient and partial-hospitalization programs, in addition to serving as office and administrative space and housing research initiatives. Bradley is a teaching hospital for The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

"We have a big research component and our research component has been off the hospital grounds for years," Barrett says. "Now we're going to be able to bring them back."