New Severance Hospital CEO Talks of Big Plans Severance Hospital Ushers In New Era

Once she pushes past the entrance to the outpatient ward on the third floor, she faces Kim Chang-yeul’s “Waterdrop” painted on the front of lobby, while on the walls next to it is a water screen and flower pots. People are seated on sofas inside. The atmosphere resembles that of a five-star hotel.

Next to her stands a “U (Ubiquitous) Helper.” Access points to the hospital’s near-total networked connectivity - its “ubiquitous” network - they are to be found at 19 spots around the hospital. The woman types in her treatment card number in accordance with instructions from the helper. At that moment, a map of the third floor pops up on the screen along with a moving arrow, pointing her to the gastroenterology center on the fourth floor.

Central hall of New Severance Hospital. Natural light brightens the atmosphere.

When she follows the direction of the arrow, a main lobby appears. It has four relaxation areas surrounded by fountains and flowers. The central reception, usually right in the middle of any hospital, is nowhere to be seen. The natural light coming into the atrium is dazzling, projecting from the sixth floor all the way down to the third basement floor, like something out of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. On the glass ceiling hangs Won In-jong’s sculpture “Sky with a Rainbow”, reminiscent of one of Alexander Calder’s mobiles.

As she rides the escalator up to the fourth floor, she sees her name on a large LCD screen in the gastroenterology center, where it popped up when she entered her treatment card number in the lobby. She gets her treatment number and pays. Staff at the center accept her treatment card and exchange it for a smart card, explaining that next time she comes, rather than inputting her card number, all she needs to do is touch her smart card to the U Helper.

There are also surgical, orthopedic and pharmacology centers with two more reception desks. Before each is a broad waiting area with a comfortable sofa. No more need for stress and discomfort as patients squeeze into a small waiting area in front of their doctor’s office. All they need to do is watch the patient call-up system on the LCD in the waiting area and wait their turn. After she is given her treatment, our woman pays once again at reception. The inconvenience of having to go back and fourth between the central reception is a thing of the past.

The hospital, Korea’s first with ubiquitous connectivity, offers a glimpse of the shape of things to come.

U Severance Helper

New Severance Hospital's gastroenterology center offers a one-stop service, explains public information head Nam Gung-gi. "Koreans experience more gastrointestinal problems than any other people. The gastroenterology center is a place where one can get treatment and prescriptions for gastrointestinal disorders and diseases of the pancreas, liver and gall bladder. When you get jaundice, it could be a problem with either the liver or gall bladder. At the center, there are internal and external medicine specialists gathered in one spot, so it's a system where diseases can be accurately and quickly diagnosed and more effective treatment given."

The hospital's outpatient center consists of five specialist centers (gastroenterology, neurology, emergency care, diabetes and transplants), two specialist clinics (cancer and allergies and asthma), and 17 clinical practice departments. It has 26 operating rooms for hospitalized patients and four for outpatients. It also has five Class 100 Cleanrooms with less than 100 dust particles per cubic meter.

One feature of the operating rooms is the audio-visual system that makes possible so-called "live surgery." Students gathered in the lecture hall or seminar rooms can watch a real operation on monitors. The lecture hall, originally about 300 seats, has been expanded to 487 seats, enough for international academic conferences, where participants can also watch live operations. Four separate seminar rooms allow for smaller workshops during conferences.

The hospital clearly represents a radical break with the past. Chang Byeong-cheol, the head of its treatment information office, said. "In the past, the emphasis was on treatment of doctors, but in the new hospital the emphasis is on customer convenience." Electronic notepads and mobile PDA phones are one unique feature.

"Nurses use the portable computers to read barcodes on the patients' wrists," Chang explains. "They also input the patients drug and food intake. Because they can administer drugs and other treatment while confirming doctor prescriptions, patients are treated in a zero-error environment free from anxiety.

"When the doctor in charge heads home, the physical distance between him and his patients grows, but the mobile PDA phones have been issued in preparation for any emergency. They allow the doctor in charge to check the condition of his patient with his PDA phone, make judgments and issue instructions."

The third floor outpatient lobby

A businessman who goes back and forth between Korea and the U.S. said, "I've been to many countries around the world, but this is the first time I've seen a hospital like this. That such a hospital exists is something to be proud of." The photojournalist who accompanied me said, "I was surprised when I first went to [a famous hospital] in Gangnam, but New Severance Hospital is on a completely different level."

The problem is how to make such a heavily technology-dependent, top-flight system run without hitches. There are 31 elevators, each with a different use, and an auto-track system regularly brings equipment needed by patients. Security at New Severance Hospital is particularly strict. A vein recognition system has been installed in the operating rooms, drug management room and server room, where tight security is required. At first, the hospital planned to adopt a fingerprint scanner, but after technical considerations, it decided to change over to the higher security provided by vein recognition, a biometric system that shines a near-infrared light on the skin, making vein patterns visible.

Another point of pride of the hospital is the size and facilities of the patient wing. With 1,004 beds, it takes up the 10th to 20th floors, with the top floor equipped with VIP rooms and a sky lounge. The VIP rooms measure from 56 to 132 square meters. The 132-square-meter suites come with separate family rooms. The views from all the rooms, both VIP and general, are outstanding. Rooms 1309 and 1310 on the 13th floor are single rooms. From there, you can see the Yonsei University campus and the cool shade of Cheongsongdae, a nearby forest, and the hillside in back. It feels like the forest surrounds the wing. Prof. Shin Won-seop of Chungbuk National University, who wrote “The Forest of Healing”, stressed, “It’s been medically proven that if hospitalized patients see a forest, the effectiveness of treatment is vastly improved.” Patients can also see the Han River.

All rooms have Internet access. On the in-patient floors, the bathrooms are the first things you see, so people can freshen up before visiting the sick. “People say that it must be expensive because the facilities are nice, but in fact, the fees for general rooms are no different from those of other general hospitals,” a hospital spokesman said.

Access to the emergency room has been improved. No more complex entry processes - patients are admitted right away, while 11 ambulances can enter and unload their emergency patients simultaneously, and the emergency room has 48 beds. “The emergency room will really be run like an emergency room, so people in need of emergency treatment can get help,” the spokesman said.

Visitor facilities are on the third floor, including restaurants, bakeries, banks and convenience stores. There are three specialty restaurants - Korean, Japanese and Chinese. The Chinese restaurant is a branch of the Mr. Chow that has made a name for itself in Gwanghwamun for its Guangdong-style Chinese cuisine. New Severance Hospital is the first general hospital to open specialty restaurants on the premises.

Hospital officials say the structure itself would become a landmark. It’s already getting a line of requests by producers wanting to shoot TV dramas there.

Yonsei University forest unfolds outside the window of Room 1309.

The plans were drawn up since 1994 by a consortium of Ellerbe Becket, a firm famous for hospital designs in the United States, and Junglim Architects. In 1997, the plans for the interior and “intelligent” building system were completed. The plans were selected by the American Institute of Architects as a work of merit in the medical category.

From the facade of the third floor plaza, there’s a stairway that pierces the central part of the building from the third to sixth floors. On the wall to the right of the staircase is a fountain. As you walk up the stairs, listening to the sound of the running water, the blue sky unfolds when you look up. It feels like a “Stairway to Heaven.”

Stairway to Heaven

The building expands space by leaving emptiness between structure, in line with contemporary trends. The central staircase meets a 2,640-square-meter roof garden named the Sky Garden, with lighting installed by Philips. “I think it would be really beautiful if one day, children born in the new hospital hold their weddings on the staircase,” said treatment center head Ji Hun-sang.

(englishnews@chosun.com )