Hospitals Treat Patients To Five-Star Amenities

Facilities Seek Market Edge With Plush Extras

Walk past the free valet parking, past the woman at the front door welcoming visitors with an attentive smile and into the light-filled lobby, where soothing tunes waft from a baby grand piano and macchiatos are brewed at the coffee bar.

The dramatic entryway features seven large sheets of glass with water cascading from the ceiling. Upstairs, the amenities include massages, in-room Internet service, movies and video games.

Only the patients in wheelchairs give away that this is a hospital.

As Shady Grove Adventist in Rockville undergoes a $99 million expansion and renovation, part of a boom in hospital construction across Montgomery County, it is doing more than responding to the region's rapid population growth. The idea is to revamp the model of patient care, hospital President Deborah A. Yancer said.

In an industry long thought of as cold and forbidding, Shady Grove and other hospitals see business opportunities in signaling to patients and their families "that we are going to take care of you in a very human way," she said.

All five of Montgomery's community hospitals are in various stages of expansion. As they increasingly compete with each other, some are emphasizing comforts such as concierges and plush furniture to get an edge.

Flat-screen televisions and CD players are standard in many rooms at Montgomery General in Olney. Janitors at Washington Adventist in Takoma Park do more than clean patients' rooms; they're instructed to ask: "Is the temperature comfortable? Can I open the blinds? Get you a pillow?"

Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in nearby Fairfax County has upgraded room service menus, offering roast pork and lemon meringue pie. Some Inova officials are trained in customer service by the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain.

"We want [patients] to leave here and then brag about it," said John Fitzgerald, president of Inova Fair Oaks. "There's a competitive nature to health care, and we want to be first. And part of that is the service."

This trend has its critics, including industry consultants who caution hospitals to remember that their primary mission is to treat patients, not coddle them. Some hospital administrators, too, are leery of overspending on frills.

Brian A. Gragnolati, president of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, which is planning an expansion that would add two acres to its three-acre campus, said many of the amenities offered by competitors are "window dressing."

"I would rather put money into nursing care and staffing and making sure our doctors are there," he said. "At the end of the day, it's about taking care of patients."