To plan the new hospital, Princeton HealthCare System team of medical and design experts traveled the country to visit and evaluate features of some of the best new hospitals and adapt best practices. As a result, University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro will be the product of evidence-based design.

Moreover, as a member of the prestigious Pebble Project--a research initiative founded by The Center for Health Design, in which individuals who are designing and building new healthcare facilities meet regularly to share information about their experience--PHCS will in turn contribute to the growing body of information concerning research-based design.

Integral to its design, University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro will represent a variety of "green" elements and initiatives:

• 100 percent fresh air (rather than recirculating indoor air) to minimize the spread of disease from certain events, such as a bio-terrorism attack or an airborne epidemic
• High-performance curtain wall system
• Sustainable construction materials and interior finishes
• Environmental control systems for lighting and temperature
• Co-generation or generating steam and electricity from the same power plant
• Energy recovery system to minimize energy impact on heating or cooling
• Water-saving fixtures
• Indigenous landscape materials
• Rain water collection, with a goal of 250 gallons per week
• East/west building orientation to maximize the natural light

For more details on the "green" design initiatives involved in the project, click here.

Traffic and the New Location

Travel to and from the new hospital campus is another consideration in the relocation planning process.

Numerous infrastructure improvements in Plainsboro, plus critically significant ones in West Windsor on Route One (improvements in the Harrison Street and Washington Road intersection and the addition of a turning lane on Harrison Street), will be made to accommodate the new hospital before the hospital opens. According to the N.J. Department of Transportation Commissioner, all the changes will reduce the wait time to "next to nothing." The state -- with the support of all the local mayors -- intends to add a left-turn lane on Harrison Street, as well as a new signal at the intersection that will allow rescue vehicles to change the signal so they can get through the light without waiting at all.

For 70 percent of our patients and employees, the new location is closer to their homes. It is also well served by existing mass transit; new transit routes from Princeton to Plainsboro will be operational in two years; a new route connecting Monroe to Plainsboro began operation in May and will stop at the hospital and at the new Merwick skilled nursing facility site. The new site will be part of the NJ Bus Rapid Transit system now being designed. Senior citizens throughout the region can access the new site and current hospital site at no cost. Call 609.452.1491, ext. 236, for information.