NMC Commentary
11.21.2017

Did the Medical Office Building Open as Scheduled November 20?

Yes!  We are so pleased to have Northwestern Primary Care, Northwestern Urgent Care, Northwestern Orthopaedics, and NMC’s Outpatient Laboratory settled into our beautiful new Medical Office Building at the front of campus. All of these important services opened in their new spaces bright and early on Monday, November 20th.  With the completion of those moves, the new Medical Office Building is now officially open and easily accessible from Fairfield Street, using either NMC’s main entrance or the Crest Road entrance.  Plentiful free parking is available immediately adjacent to the Medical Office Building’s front door, including a new supply of handicapped parking spaces.

As you can imagine, it takes a great deal of planning and effort to move busy practices like Primary Care, Urgent Care, and Orthopaedics and a busy service like our outpatient laboratory’s blood drawing stations. I would like to thank the entire staff of each of the relocated departments for their tireless efforts over the past few weeks to make this move as seamless as possible for our patients. They have had to learn their new spaces and create new workflows to be ready to continue to provide exceptional care in their new space the morning it opens. Doing so while continuing to care for patients within existing space is quite an achievement!

Special thanks also go out to departments throughout NMC who have helped support this move – including Materials Management, Facilities, Environmental Services, Information Technology, Community Relations, Patient Access, Volunteers, Organizational Development, Security, and Restaurant & Catering and others.  An undertaking of this size is truly a team effort and I am so proud of my team here at NMC.

At the same time, we greatly appreciate the patience of all our patients, visitors, and neighbors during this time of construction and relocation.  We have tried to help visitors and patients be comfortable coming to campus and finding their way amidst our changes through strong communications in many forms, including personal assistance with the stationing campus ambassadors in the parking lots and our amazing volunteers at temporary entrances to help patients and visitors find their way.  Time after time, our staff has remarked on how positive our community has been about this project and the level of understanding our visitors and patients shared.

With the opening of the Medical Office Building, there are now two prominent entrances to NMC along Fairfield Street side of the facility.   The Medical Office Building is connected to the main hospital by a wonderful glass walkway that passes the new medical clinic space (currently housing Northwestern Cardiology, Northwestern Pulmonology, and Northwestern Women’s Services – OB/GYN).  It is so convenient to have the hospital, the medical clinics, and the medical office building attached.  It allows patients, visitors, and staff to pass between areas with easy access to services.    The main entrance to the hospital itself continues to be located at the top of our main driveway from Fairfield Street.  This entrance is staffed by our dedicated Veteran Valets.  They are providing free valet parking and free shuttle service to make accessing care even easier than ever before.  We greatly appreciate their service to our community!

As Thanksgiving approaches, it is fitting that so much of this answer to this question is rooted in deep appreciation and thankfulness.  This is such a wonderful community and the community’s input and generosity has played such a key role in shaping and enabling these enhancements to our healing environment.  All of us here at NMC are thankful to be a true community hospital and we thank you for your continued support of local healthcare.  On behalf of our entire team, Happy Thanksgiving!

— Jill Berry Bowen, NMC’s Chief Executive Officer