UnityPoint Health-Trinity Heart Center, ED to Improve Coordinated Care

CHICAGO, Ill. — UnityPoint Health-Trinity has opened a new Heart Center and emergency department focused on enhancing coordinated care in Rock Island, Illinois and the surrounding region.

The new ED and Heart Center on the UnityPoint Health — Trinity Rock Island, Illinois, campus will consolidate cardiac services and increase ED capacity. Collaboration between Trinity and CannonDesign, from the outset, led to innovations in care delivery that corresponded to changes in patient flows, processes, staffing and use of clinical IT reflected in facilities today and capable of evolution over time. The general contractor for the project was a joint venture between Russell Construction and Pepper Construction.

The Heart Center supports improved access and adequate capacity for care coordination, making a full continuum of heart care services – testing, diagnosis, treatment, cardiac rehabilitation and patient education – more accessible for the community.

The emergency department includes distinct areas to improve patient flow through and around the main ED. Patients are seen in a specially secured area where a nurse examines and triages to a rapid assessment area or general treatment station based on presenting condition. The unit also features its own CT scanner and X-ray imaging rooms, trauma room and a 12-bed short-stay observation unit.

A crisis stabilization unit directly adjacent to the ED allows for a more rapid disposition of medically stable behavioral health patients to an environment free of the milieu that can trigger behavioral escalation. The unit features a “living room” designed to be a calming, separate space intended to help de-escalate behavioral health patients in crisis. A multi-year, in-depth research project on the unit is underway studying the joint impact of structural and procedural care treatment processes on behavioral health patients. The results could have a far-reaching impact on the future design of other hospitals and emergency centers across the country.

Photos courtesy of Tom Rossiter Photography.