Erlanger Hospital’s CEO Kevin Spiegel.REVOLUTIONIZING CHILDREN’S HOSPITALSHere’s a look at the views of Bruce Komiske, a children’s hospital project executive.”I often make the analogy between a hospital and a prison. At hospitals, we take people, strip their clothes and values, put them in a room with a stranger, give them institutional food. Sounds like a prison, right? It’s the most dehumanizing thing we could do to you, and we do it when you’re sick, injured and dying, or when a child.”The philosophy, particularly of a children’s hospital, is to blow that up — to make walking into that hospital totally different, so that it does not look, feel, smell like a hospital. One of the ways to do that is to engage the community, to make it a place people feel very proud of, that is unique to that community. … Instead of coming in feeling scared or frightened, or intimidated, the children are coming in with school groups just to see the public spaces. And when they come when they are sick, the fear factor is totally different.”OTHER PROJECTSSome of Bruce Komiske’s previous key projects include: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of ChicagoWomen’s and Children’s Hospital at Mission Bay, San FranciscoSidra Medical and Research Center in Doha, QatarMaria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Westchester, N.Y.Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Providence, R.I.
When Erlanger Health System CEO Kevin Spiegel envisions the Chattanooga skyline as it could look seven years from now, he sees a new building standing among the ranks of city icons like the Tennessee Aquarium, the Creative Discovery Museum and the Hunter Museum of American Art.
“This community deserves a state-of-the-art children’s hospital,” Spiegel said. “We want a hospital with wide-reaching, regional impact. And really, it needs to happen sooner than later.”
Erlanger officials have long wanted to build a stand-alone children’s hospital. And for now, the vision is still just that — a vision.
But Spiegel is ramping up the process to make it a reality, calling for a new women’s and children’s hospital to be built in the city within five to seven years.