Self-powering elevators, solar-powered water heaters and regenerative pool filters are just some of the “green” innovations coming to a new Wellness Center on the Thibodaux Regional Medical Center campus.
“I think it makes a strong statement,” Thibodaux Regional CEO Greg Stock said. “We hope that it starts a wave of change that helps us all live longer, be happier…and we can do our part as a healthcare institution to affect the health of our communities.”
The Wellness Center from Thibodaux Regional Medical Center is a $73 million investment in community health, which entails swimming pools, running tracks, a gymnasium, fitness center and medical facilities. Stock said that this overall wellness approach to health is important in a state that ranks high for factors such as obesity and breast cancer mortality.
“The overall health of the community is not as good as it should be,” Stock said.
Construction has already begun, and the facility is expected to be completed by this time next year.
The new building features a number of innovations that will help it save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
Among these are a regenerative braking system on the elevator, which generates energy while going down that it then uses to power it going up. In addition, Stock said roughly 60 percent of the heat for the warm-water therapy pools will come from solar power, and the water system will help the center save over 700,000 gallons of water per year.
“That equates to about 5 million bottles of water per year,” Stock said.
All told, Thibodaux expects that the new building’s technologies will save it more than $145,000 annually over traditional designs.
The center will also include a number of tools to help with patients’ continuing health, as it will be home to state-of-the-art centers that address neuroscience, sports medicine, urgent care, breast health and cardiac rehab.
These centers will be staffed with roughly 250 specialized doctors, according to Stock.
This preventative health approach, Stock said, is important in an era of skyrocketing medical costs.
“We realized that somebody is going to have to do something to get upstream from these healthcare problems, instead of absorbing the costs of acute care,” Stock said.
Acute care consists of direct, hospital-care items such as responding to heart attacks or strokes. Stock said Thibodaux is already the area leader in acute care services.
The Thibodaux-based medical facility serves a five-parish region, including St. Charles Parish. In addition to providing direct membership to its health services, the new Wellness Center will also serve as a resource for its doctors to work with patients on controlling health issues such as Graves’ disease—alarming rates of which have been detected in the area by the hospital’s newly hired endocrinologist—or diabetes.
The diabetes center currently offers a wide range of services for control, including diet management plans, medication counseling, exercise plans and an insulin pump instruction center.
In addition to added value for patients, the fitness center, swimming pool, tracks and gymnasium will be available directly to the public for a fee. Stock said the fee will be determined after full-time facility management staff are hired later this month.
The center will also assist Thibodaux Regional’s 1,200-strong workforce to stay healthy.
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