UHS To Begin Overhaul Of Facilities, Programs

Harvard University Health Services (UHS) has launched a five-year program to renovate and reevaluate the center's services, UHS officials said yesterday.

With the opening this week of its new $280.000 clinical laboratory, located on the fourth floor of its Holyoke Center building. UHS has finished the first in a series of projects that will include converting the now defunct lab into a surgical suite, rearranging the walk-in clinic installing a computer system, and upgrading Stillman Infirmary and other facilities, said Associate Director for Administration and Finance Josephus Long.

Renovations

"We wanted to move away from the concept of being a 'student health service,' which automatically means being interior." Long explained, adding that the renovations are designed to improve both "efficiency and aesthetics."

Long said the five year plan, which is being funded by a loan from the Harvard Corporation, originated last year after "the renovations in the River Houses brought about a realization about building deterioration Harvard saw that it had to manage its finite resources better."

He added that "various departments were asked to put together plans for their future."

However, discussions about possible renovations had been going on since 1976, UHS Director Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker said yesterday.

Long Time

Long said that UHS has not been renovated since it was built in 1961, and that "22 years ago, it fulfilled its needs. After 20 years, the needs and expectations of the population have changed."

Long said that the program will also attempt to raise students' general opinion of UHS. "With people perceiving it as a 'student clinic,' it's depreciated. But there are real physicians, real nurses, it's a real medical facility," he added.

All for You

Carol I. Wotschiak, UHS's chief medical technologist, called the new lab "comprehensive" and added. "We gave up a lot of space [downstairs] for patient comfort."

While the new facility uses 2800 sq.ft. of space, she said this is less than the total area of the three labs that UHS used until this week.

In addition to the old first-floor lab, there were two others on the fourth floor. The new facility has taken over space previously occupied by the Environmental Health and Safety Department, now housed in Paltrey House on Oxford St.

New Equipment

New lab equipment includes a $10,000 Coulter Counter, which is used in hematology analysis. In addition, UHS has installed a second electrocardiogram device, several new refrigerators to hold samples, and an autoclave, which sterilizes instruments electrically.

Wotschiak said the additional space on the fourth floor was designed primarily to give patients "privacy and comfort" that they did not have on the first floor, where there was no waiting room for patients seeking test result.

"The reception area alone is probably the size of the old downstairs lab," she said, adding. "Before, we kept patients waiting out in the halls. We had a traffic jam by the bathrooms."

Comfort

UHS's first-floor walk in clinic waiting area is also being evaluated Long said. He added that future renovations will probably involve enlarging the area and redesigning the arrangement of the seats to make patients more comfortable.

"The perceptions [of UHS] have a lot to do with how comfortable people feel and how aesthetically pleasing the surroundings are," he said.

"I've always thought [the design of] the walk-in clinic is awful," Wacker said, adding. "It's always reminded me of a poorly designed railway station."