Highlights of the New Ann & David Brennan Critical Care Center
at Summa Health System

• On Wednesday, April 26, 2006, the first patients from Summa Health System will enter this new facility.  Click here for directions to the Ann & David Brennan Critical Care Center.

• The Ann & David Brennan Critical Care Center is located on the Akron City Hospital campus.

• The new critical care center will provide the only dedicated critical care center in the Akron/Canton region. Each of Summa’s five critical care units, which are currently spread across three different levels, will be consolidated under one roof, increasing the number of critical care beds from 66 to 94. This new center will allow Summa to treat more patients.

• Some of the most stunning highlights of the new building are the private aesthetically pleasing rooms (based on evidence based design), each with a window, large capacity to accommodate family members and soothing, natural colors; individual workstations, as well as a voice activated, wireless interactive communication system which will allow staff to press a button on their badge or lanyard to talk with others throughout the building.

• What sets Summa’s critical care center apart from others is the design of the facility. The design, privacy, openness, and soothing color schemes will provide a faster healing environment and offers a place much different from typical institutional critical care areas which feel very high tech and scary.

• Also unique to the new center are the ergonomically-designed ceiling mounted patient lifts in every room. These lifts are part of the ANA “Handle with Care” initiative, which make it possible for staff to reduce the need to lift patients, thus minimizing risk to injury. There is not a hospital with this combination of design and technology in Northeast Ohio. 

• On all floors of the new center, critical care rooms will fan out from the central nursing station, the command post for monitoring patients. Life-saving technology will tie the stations to essential computer networks, reducing costs and inefficiency associated with managing care in multiple locations.

• The new critical care center will offer comfort, convenience and state-of-the-art technology in a healing environment.

• There will also be an upscale restaurant in the building, called Virtues, offering mid- to high-end entrees and an opportunity for families and visitors to enjoy a relaxing meal. This restaurant will be open to the public, beginning in May 2006.

• The lobby is a two-floor lobby, which will include a water feature and a
6- foot piano. The lobby will have ceramic flooring, soothing, healing colors, modern chandeliers, and cherry wood throughout and comfortable seating to provide a retreat for family and visitors.

• Patients come to Summa’s ER from 20 counties in the northeastern quadrant of Ohio because of its Level I Trauma Center, the skills of renowned specialists and the hospital’s nationally recognized quality of care.

• The Ann and David Brennan Critical Care Center will fill a need in the community. Hospitals across the nation and in Akron are faced with critical care capacity issues.  Summa’s emergency department, the main portal to the critical care unit, is one of the busiest in Northeast Ohio, with more than 100,000 visits, nearly 15,000 ambulance arrivals and over 270 Life Flight helicopter arrivals. Other factors contributing to the critical care crisis are innovative medical research, lifesaving technologies, an aging population with multiple and complex medical problems and the growing number of uninsured. Nearly 20 percent of all patients who visit the emergency department at Summa need to be admitted to the hospital, often to a critical care bed.