NEW ADVANCEMENTS
1994
BIGGER AND BETTER
Hackensack Medical Center is
seen under construction during a
light snow on March 4, 1997.
By the end of 1989, officials proposed three new pavilions at a cost of $114 mil-
lion. The largest hospital expansion in state history up to that time, it took capacity
to 597 beds, starting with the completion of the 70,000-square-foot Hillcrest Building
in 1992 and ending when the 225,000-square-foot Patient Pavilion opened in 1994.
In 1995, the hospital was the first in the state and second in the nation to be
named a magnet facility by the American Nurses Association. That year, it also
changed its name to Hackensack University Medical Center, having previously
aligned itself with the University Health System of New Jersey.
Hackensack University
Medical Center as seen
in December 2009.
2005
EXPANSION
CONTINUES
The hospital
continued to
expand at a fast rate for the next decade, with the largest change coming in 2005 in
the form of the 305,000-square-foot Gabrellian Women’s and Children’s Pavilion.
Now the largest provider of inpatient and outpatient services in New Jersey,
Hackensack University Medical Center boasts 34,100 team members and more than
6,500 physicians.
GOOD TIME FOR A GAME “It was fun, and using it made
me feel a little better,” says 17-year-old Ryan Shaughnessy
of his in-hospital experience with virtual reality goggles.
VIRTUAL REALITY
TO THE RESCUE
Being in a hospital and having potentially
painful procedures is tough enough for adults,
who understand what will happen and why; for
kids, the anxiety of the unknown can complicate
the already-difficult experience. The Joseph M.
Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack
Meridian Health Hackensack University Medical
Center is offering its pediatric patients an escape:
They can put on a set of virtual reality goggles
and be transported on a journey. Ten pairs of this
state-of-the-art, interactive technology were
donated anonymously through the Hackensack
University Medical Center Foundation to the
Child Life Program. The goggles are used by
patients in the Children’s Cancer Institute, and the
pediatric inpatient and outpatient units of the
children’s hospital. “The goggles, which are a form
of guided imagery, have been shown to help
alleviate anxiety with procedures,” says Stacey
Rifkin-Zenenberg, DO, FAAP, pediatric
hematologist/oncologist, Children’s Cancer
Institute, and section chief, Pain and Palliative
Care, Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at
Hackensack University Medical Center.
— CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
(201) HEALTH 2019 EDITION
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