Imelda gets green light for new day hospital

After an intense period of planning, questioning and consultation, a building permit has been issued and the non-profit organization Imelda in Bonheiden can start building a brand new day hospital. The ambition is to bring the new day hospital into use in 2026.

The current, temporary building will be demolished to make way for a "patient-oriented and sustainable" day hospital. With this, Imelda aims to continue to respond to the increased demand for outpatient care, where patients can go home the same day after surgery.

With the major shift from traditional hospitalization to day hospitalization, Imelda Hospital's current surgical day hospital reached the limit of its capacity. "Due to renewed procedures, patients' length of stay in the hospital is becoming shorter and shorter. Patients are back on their feet faster. More and more treatments are done in day care. To make this shorter stay as efficient and effective as possible, there is a need for an alternative arrangement of the care infrastructure and even a new way of working," explains medical director Dr. Philip Rijkers.

The new Imelda day hospital will bring together day surgery and outpatient services such as endoscopy and the pain clinic in one accessible location just off the hospital's existing main building. The first floor will house the reception, treatment rooms and pain clinic. "In these treatment rooms, we will perform minor procedures, which do not require a patient to stay in the hospital for a long time," he said. On the second floor there will be four additional operating rooms for day surgery. This is also where all pre- and post-operative examinations can take place. The second floor will house the gastroenterology service, with four endoscopy rooms and one bronchoscopy room. The full preparation and recovery room will also be on this floor."

"The new day hospital will minimize wait times," Rijkers said. "Patients will arrive on call so they arrive shortly before their treatment. The entire route a patient takes will be visually trackable to the caregivers in the day hospital. Thus, at any time it will be clear where a patient is, and his companion or contact person can be notified via text message when the patient returns to the room after treatment or surgery. Another great added value is that all steps of treatment can happen in one location. Patients will no longer have to move to another department within the hospital during their day admission. On top of that, the building will be located right next to the parking lot. All this contributes to a smoother day hospital visit and a more pleasant experience for the patient." 

In 2023, Imelda physicians performed 10,335 outpatient procedures. Plans for the new day hospital anticipate an increase of 30% over the next 10 to 15 years. It will initially include a basement and three floors, together accounting for a total floor area of 4,500 square meters.

The designers drew a sober building so as not to further increase the large amalgam of different architectural styles and materials on campus. The new building will have a cladding in concrete and aluminum in a soft red tint, matching the various red brick volumes already present.

The floor slabs span entire spaces between the facades and central core. This provides an obstacle-free zone with a width of about 15 meters, along the entire length of the building. For this large span, prestressed floor slabs are placed on a structure of prefabricated beams and columns. The lightweight interior walls can be easily moved or removed, according to the evolving needs of the hospital. Moreover, the entire building is modularly designed, which not only provides great flexibility in terms of layout and functions, but also the possibility of reusing building elements when redesigning parts of the building. The facades are also designed accordingly. Between the concrete strips for the parapets and the eaves, aluminum-clad modular wood-frame cassettes are placed. They allow the facade to be adapted in accordance with future use.

The construction will be financed entirely with the own funds of Imelda Hospital and its doctors, totaling 30 million euros. "In order to demolish the existing building, the day hospital was temporarily given a new home within the hospital. There, the new way of working is already being fully tested so that we can further evaluate and refine it," facility director Stefaan Claeys comments. "With this, we are checking whether the new working method in the day hospital is beneficial for our patients and workable for our employees. So when the new building is finished, the new operation will also be on point."