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March 06, 2023 05:00 AM

Tennessee children's hospital creates a home-like escape for patients, families

Lauren Berryman
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    St Jude 1
    St Jude Children's Research Hospital

    Leaders worked with parents, clinicians and architects to create a unique space aimed at serving the needs of patients and their families.

    During long days at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital five years ago, Paula Elsener and her son would find respite sitting by a window behind a bank of elevators.

    “That was our spot,” she said, reflecting on the secluded corner with two chairs and views of a nearby pyramid-shaped building.

    Elsener knows firsthand how the patient-family experience can be improved during a lengthy hospital stay. Her son spent eight months at the nonprofit Memphis, Tennessee-based hospital, far from their hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, as he underwent treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. He’d already survived testicular cancer.

    Hoping to help other parents and kids, Elsener serves on the hospital’s Patient Family Advisory Council. The council, along with clinicians, offered hospital leadership teams recommendations for its new Family Commons space, which opened in February after several years of design and construction. The 45,000-square-foot floor, funded through a $50 million donation from pharmaceutical company AbbVie to cover construction and operating costs, offers a welcoming environment.

    The floor is designed to resemble a town square in an effort to provide a sense of normalcy, said St. Jude President and CEO Dr. James Downing.

    When children get a cancer diagnosis, treatment protocols direct their lives, often requiring families to spend full days at the hospital.

    “The parents feel as though they lose control of being parents,” Downing said. The space is designed to let parents be parents, and children be children, he added.

    St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

    The new Family Commons floor includes an art room.

    The floor, which was previously an inpatient unit, takes a comprehensive approach to patient and family well-being. With more than two dozen uniquely designed areas, Family Commons includes a cafe, music studio, art room, a sacred space for prayer and reflection, sleeping nooks, classrooms and a salon.

    During her son’s chemotherapy, Elsener said her family would have welcomed easy access to the latter.

    “Having a salon there empowers the patient. … They’re walking into an environment where going in and asking for a shaved head is the norm rather than feeling like they’re being looked at,” she said.

    Downing said the organization’s leaders will conduct studies on how the space enhances the patient-family experience and share the information with the healthcare community.

    But Elsener believes the space is a game-changer for St. Jude patients and their families.

    “If you can escape for a little bit, and just feel normal for 30 minutes, it gives you strength to carry on the battle,” she said. 


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