BOCA RATON — A hospital that 18 women willed into existence after two children died in 1962 is about to become the largest in Palm Beach County.
Boca Raton Regional Hospital expects to begin moving patients into its new Gloria Drummond Patient Tower by the end of October, Chief Operating Officer Haroula Protopapadakis Norden said.
The tower is named for Gloria Drummond, whose two young children died of poisoning at a time when Boca Raton had no hospital. She and other women in the community raised the money to build one.
The eight-story, 427,000-square-foot tower adds 216 private patient rooms and 20 operating rooms to the campus at 800 Meadows Road, about a mile south of Florida Atlantic University. Once work on the hospital's older tower is finished,
the campus will have 561 licensed beds.
"Largest hospital in Palm Beach County," Norden said, "and also the area code of Palm Beach County."
The older tower will be converted to general medical beds. It will keep a neurological ICU that connects to the Marcus Neuroscience Institute.
The hospital's main specialties are cancer, cardiac care, neuroscience and orthopedics.
The project cost between $700 million and $750 million, Norden said. That figure covers the building, furniture and equipment.
"Hospitals are expensive," Norden said.
Crews broke ground in 2022. The architecture firm HKS of Coral Gables designed the tower and the Miami-based construction company of Robins & Morton built it. Before patients arrive, a final life-safety survey is scheduled for Oct. 13.
After that, the hospital plans to move services into the building in phases instead of all at once. There is no exact opening date yet, Norden said.
Here's what's in the new Boca Ration Regional Hospital tower
The tower is “about 90% complete,” said Ryan Lieber, a communications manager for Baptist Health South Florida, the hospital's parent company. The remaining construction is on the upper floors.
The tower includes a bistro, an interfaith chapel and a Shabbat room.
One operating suite has an MRI machine that moves into the room on tracks, so neurosurgeons can scan a patient's brain in the middle of an operation.
Another room, a “hybrid” suite, lets surgeons switch between open surgery and minimally invasive procedures guided by live X-ray imaging.
Upstairs, each patient floor has a sunroom at either end of the tower where families can gather. Every patient room has its own bathroom with a shower.
Rooms have 42-inch televisions and digital whiteboards that list the patients' care team and plan. Additionally, nurses can chart inside the room instead of in the hallway.
The doors and observation windows use privacy glass that turns to frosted from clear at the touch of a switch. Patients get privacy and darkness when they want it, and nurses can clear the glass to check on them without opening the door.
Touch-screen kiosks give turn-by-turn directions through the building and can send the route to a visitor's phone by QR code. Getting lost is one of the most common complaints the hospital hears, Norden said.
Norden said the hospital’s biggest need is primary-care physicians. "It's sort of like a dying breed. People are getting more specialized,” she said.
Hospital leaders and supporters cut the ribbon on the tower on Oct. 2. Among them were Lincoln Mendez, the hospital's chief executive officer; Bo Boulenger, president and CEO of Baptist Health South Florida; and Christine Lynn, a benefactor of Baptist Health.
Norden, who grew up in Miami, said she still has trouble believing how the building turned out. Where a small entrance once stood, there is now a lobby lined with windows.
"There's nothing like a new hospital," she said.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New tower to make Boca Ration Regional county's largest hospital
