MOANALUA — Kaiser Permanente marked its 50th anniversary yesterday by opening a new $141.7 million wing that officials said dramatically improves space and services at its Moanalua Medical Center.

State-of-the-art medical equipment fills the new wing, and the design of the six-story structure gives patients an added benefit that is meant to promote healing and reduce future operating costs.

Spacious private rooms with climate control, beautiful views, natural lighting, soothing color schemes and large bathrooms are the hallmark of the emergency, maternity and surgical/general patient rooms.

Immediately, patients will see that the emergency department is larger, offering private care in fully enclosed rooms, not curtained-off areas. And the mother/baby suites are homier, said Patricia Rodrigues, chief operating and nursing officer.

"We have tried to create a really great natural healing environment with large windows, by bringing in as much of the outdoors as possible," Rodrigues said on a tour of the facility yesterday.

The new wing is the first phase of a two-phase project with a total cost of $168.8 million. Phase II is under way and will include renovating 95,000 square feet of the existing space, building a sixth floor on the old structure and connecting the two buildings.

Staff will begin moving into the wing next week and the last department should be in by June.

Rodrigues said she has been involved in the planning of the building since 2000 and all along nurses, doctors and patients have been consulted. She said the end product is a work environment that nurses and physicians love and a facility that caters to the members.

"In every design concept we tried to incorporate what's best for staff as well as what's best for our members," she said.

For instance all of the floors are made of recycled rubber that's intended to be less stressful on legs and backs. At the end of hallways, windows were added to let in natural light for its healing quality for staff and patients. Nurses stations are no longer centralized but spread throughout the floor so each station has a view of three rooms. A special light system is designed to improve communications.

ER CAPACITY TRIPLED

The Emergency Department, on the third floor but at street level, triples the available space and includes 29 private general treatment rooms, each of which is fully equipped with monitors, medical equipment and a computer. Patients no longer will have to wait for a specialty room to open before a procedure, such as stitching a wound, can be done because the rooms are multipurpose, said Amanda Browne, a Kaiser registered nurse.

"It decreases the waste of time looking for equipment or moving patients around," Browne said. "Everything you need to care for the patient is in each room."

The ER, which sees 33,000 patients a year, also has nine fast-track rooms that can be used like a clinic, a hazardous material decontamination room, an infectious disease control room, behavioral psychological room and a trauma room.

Carl Deleon, nurse manager for ER, said the new facility leaves nurses speechless. The privacy it offers to patients is especially desirable, he said. All the things you see on television about ER ring true, Deleon said, so there can be drunks shouting obscenities, people in the hallway and a person vomiting three doors down.

"Now we can protect patients and protect families with kids," he said.

While most of the new wing represents an expansion of the old hospital, it does have a new, 64-slice CT scanner that can generate three-dimensional images in five seconds to help detect coronary artery blockage faster, said Geoff Sewell, Kaiser's executive medical director.

"We've also added a lot of medical surgical beds where if you need additional monitoring it's all wireless," Sewell said. "It can be done seamlessly for your case so you can stay in place no matter what level of care you may need."

ROOMS FULLY EQUIPPED

Eight operating rooms are located on the fourth floor of the building and each room is fully equipped and includes a retractable high-definition monitor, sterile closets, and a records station where patient information can be accessed from a computer, Rodrigues said. No more carting equipment from one area to another, she said.

Patients — surgical and general — recuperate on the fifth floor.

The sixth floor is for mothers and babies and the rooms are all family friendly, she said. The rooms look more like a bedroom with specialized emergency equipment hidden behind wooden cabinet doors. The bathroom with a shower has no curbs to trip on and is spacious enough to move around in with a wheelchair.

The second floor has conference rooms, a blood bank, medical library, hospital lab and central sterilization department.

Membership costs and co-payment for the Kaiser coverage increased recently, but Sewell said the cost of the new addition won't suddenly translate into higher premiums. Some of the features of the new building such as insulated windows, window shades and white roof cap, will help keep future operating costs low, he said.