Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) has opened its fifth regional destination hospital, CTCA at Southeastern Regional Medical Center, in Newnan, Georgia, just south of Atlanta. Designed by Dewberry, the 226,000-square-foot, all-digital facility is the newest home of Patient Empowered Care®, a unique care model that combines state-of-the-art clinical treatments and technology and supportive therapies such as nutrition therapy, naturopathic medicine, pain management, oncology rehabilitation, mind-body medicine, spiritual support, and more to help improve quality of life.

CTCA at Southeastern includes residential accommodations for outpatients and their families as well as inpatient rooms; and features abundant amenities and an efficient, patient-centric design that optimizes treatment, care, communication and healing. The new hospital incorporates feedback from patients and caregivers to improve processes continuously that support patient care.

"CTCA and its entire staff really understand their mission of care," says David L. Huey, AIA, LEED AP, who served as principal-in-charge for Dewberry. "The building reflects that mission, with beautiful patient rooms, amenities, and highly efficient spaces for treatment and care. It's an exceptional environment, designed to be patient-friendly and accommodating to families."

Highlights of the design include:

  • 25 universal rooms (expandable to 50), also known as multi-organization service rooms, that eliminate the need to transfer patients from room to room, and can be transformed to provide an ICU level of care if needed
  • Decentralized nursing stations located immediately outside each patient room
  • A lean operations approach that reduces non-value-added hours; for example, minimizing patient waiting and walking/transport time as they meet with different members of their care team who come to them
  • High-end finishings and furniture throughout the lobbies, lounges, and patient rooms
  • Large patient rooms designed to accommodate families, with monitors, medical gases, and other equipment concealed in oak cabinetry and easily accessible if needed
  • Large, backlit photographs creating "sky ceilings" for patients undergoing MRIs and other diagnostic procedures
  • Careful consideration given to openness, natural light, views to the outside, and the inclusion of environments in which to create small communities among patients, if desired, while also ensuring options for privacy during treatment and care
  • Wifi-enabled gazebo garden with swan pond, outdoor patio for dining with surrounding koi pond, multiple fountains, and two rooftop terraces with views of surrounding natural landscape

Among the new hospital's features are 25 private inpatient treatment rooms, surgical suites, specialized treatment suites for endoscopy and bronchoscopy, state-of-the-art radiation and infusion therapy departments, rehabilitation and physical therapy, concierge services, a dining room with organic offerings, a chapel, and on-site guest accommodations. Advanced medical technologies include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomogrophy-computed tomography (PET-CT), Varian TrueBeam™, TomoTherapy®, Calypso®, TheraSphere, digital imaging, interventional angiography, and more.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma, office of Dewberry, which also designed CTCA regional hospitals in Tulsa and Goodyear, Arizona, provided complete architectural and interior design services. The firm has also designed a number of improvements to CTCA facilities in Zion, Illinois, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Other design and construction team members include the Stonebridge Group for owner's representation, Wallace Engineering for structural engineering, Flynt & Kallenburger for mechanical/electrical engineering, Kimley-Horn and Associates for site/civil engineering, URG (a division of Kimley-Horn) for landscape architecture, and Camacho for food service design. Construction was provided by the team of Okland Construction and Batson-Cook Construction.