Unique to Hamburg: INA

This Thursday, the concept of a paediatric admission ward, which has been implemented for the first time in Hamburg, was unveiled: The INA (Interdisciplinary Emergency and Admission Ward) was opened at the Altona Children’s Hospital.

After a construction period of 14 months, the building directly next to the central emergency department now has ten single rooms with the most advanced medical equipment, which allow for any emergency and intensive care, each with its own bathroom as well as the possibility of accommodating parents.

Two of the new rooms are accessible from the outside as sluice rooms, so that patients with an unclear infection status can also be admitted and treated hygienically.
This conversion and new construction work at the interface of the emergency department operated 24/7 has created a standard of comfort for the young patients and accompanying persons. There processes and structures have also been optimised for all employees of the emergency department during the first admission period, which prevents disturbance on the normal AKK wards due to new patient admissions, in particular at night, and enables clarification of the patient status directly on the spot in the emergency department.
After a celebratory opening ceremony, in particular Senator Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks, Ministry of Health and Consumer Protection of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, who supported the project with around 4 million euros, Ms Cornelia Poletto, Patron of the Altona Children’s Hospital and Professor Dr Burkard Göke, Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of the UKE, together with the Managing Director of AKK, Ms Christiane Dienhold were able to get their own impression and take a look at the new facilities with explanations from architect Marc Ewers.

The large amount of space within the new building and its calm aura were very well received by the visitors at the opening. Staff are pleased with the centrally located base, the heart of the INA with monitoring of all rooms, which ensures direct contact and overview of the ward, the assigned waiting area and also the CED admission. As architects, the lighting situation in the additional extension was also important to us. Large windows in the patients’ rooms and a small central atrium with large windows in the interior, around which the staff lounge, management duty room, supply room of the CED and a new examination room are now arranged, provide brightness and, in many places, an orienting reference to the outside world for staff and patients. Overall, the design concept attempts to bridge the gap between a certain restlessness to be expected from the more rapidly changing patients in an emergency department and the calm and comfort of a ward: minimised colour accents form an otherwise calming, warm basic colour scheme with clear building structures and elements.

The detailed model of the curtain wall of the front bed wing of the new building, which is not yet completely finished, also sparked great interest among the visitors at the opening ceremony.

The façade planning of the building structure, was completely carried out by us down to the last drill hole and screw, i.e. the entire works planning as the basis for the production of the substructures and the three-dimensional façade coating. It incorporates the listed-building ensemble of the Altona Children’s Hospital with regard to the materials used for the existing building. This is continued as a special design element through the curtain wall with its sheds erected at intervals and as a new element in the central inner courtyard of the AKK. The completion of the curtain wall is expected in just under six weeks and will then conclude this special project.

We wish the Altona Children’s Hospital, in particular Dr Grosse Lordemann as head doctor of INA, together with the head of nursing Mr Ansgar Kuhn and the young and old patients admitted there all the best in the new space!