What a difference a well-planned project can make. The Pavilion for Women and Children at Providence Everett Medical Center will make a huge difference for women, children and their families around Snohomish County and beyond.
The new facility is set to open next Sunday — Mother’s Day. Of course.
The symbolism is appropriate. This new facility, however, will be anything but your typical serving of Mother’s Day breakfast, where the thought is more important than the burnt toast.
This is a top-class facility, with outstanding technology. That’s in keeping with what professionals have known for some time: Everett is becoming an important regional medical center. Providence Everett’s emergency room visits, for instance, have begun to outpace those at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.
As the public can see during open houses late this week, it isn’t just the technology that is impressive. So is the design, the comfort, the attention paid to facilities that can provide the best health outcomes and the most humane setting. There are inspiring pieces of art and pleasing views around almost every corner.
Thanks to smart planning (under way since 1995), the $56 million Pavilion will encompass a wide variety of services in units that were conceived with an eye toward coordinated care. It’s easy to believe Providence Everett’s promise that the Pavilion will have a "family-centered care philosophy." The facility will provide everything from specialty services for sick children to books and videos. The main units will be the Comprehensive Breast Center, Family Maternity Center, Family Resource Center, Newborn Intensive Care Unit, Pediatrics, Family Resource Center, Providence Children’s Center (with a variety of rehabilitative and developmental services), and Children’s Everett. Children’s Everett is an outpatient specialty clinic that will be operated by Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. The intensive care unit will also be operated in partnership with Children’s.
In many ways, health care is in serious crisis, particularly in Washington state. The partnership reminds us that, even amid difficulties, good institutions continue to find better ways to serve the public. Such institutions respect the public, as can be seen in the attention paid to patient’s ideas in designing the breast center and the maternity center, for instance. For all the questions about health care financing, moreover, the Pavilion itself is an impressive reminder of the quality of medical science and care today.
Indeed, the financing, much like the planning, is an example of the continuing reality of the saying, Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Providence Everett Medical Center contributed $41.2 million from borrowing, reserves and operating income. Children’s provided $8.3 million. And local donors are well on their way to meeting Providence General Foundation’s fund-raising campaign goal of $7.6 million, most of which goes to the Pavilion.
The generous community response reflects both enthusiasm for the many services that will benefit numerous people at the Pavilion and a sense of community pride. The pride should only grow as more people see the Pavilion and what the health care professionals there can accomplish.
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