COUNTYWIDE : High-Tech Opening for New CHOC

Thousands of visitors, including many former patients, previewed the latest in medical equipment and hospital design Sunday during festive grand opening ceremonies at the new Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange.

“It’s very high-tech,” said Cheryl Dozier, whose 3-year-old son Adam has just successfully completed a 9-month course of cancer treatment at the hospital. “Now, it’s more suitable for children.”

The $58-million, 192-bed facility will replace the 161-bed converted nursing home which has served as a nonprofit pediatric hospital since 1975. Patients will be transferred on Nov. 9.

Unlike the old facility, the new six-story building can accommodate the largest air ambulance helicopters. Its 17-foot high floors can hold modern medical equipment. It has 96 new private rooms.

At Sunday’s open house, bands played, singers entertained and children tried on hospital clothes at booths outside while others toured the new building. Inside, visitors seemed most impressed by:

* Four “laminar air flow” rooms without doors, which use circulation and bubble windows to provide a sterile environment for patients with weakened immune systems.

* Computerized medication systems, determined by nurses’ and patients’ armbands.

* Gas-mixing systems that regulate the composition of air used by respiratory machines.

The nursing stations and bathrooms are child-size, and the white walls are complemented with soft pastels for babies and bright pastels for older children. Teen-aged patients have their own room for visitors.

Charles Hester, chairman of the hospital board, saluted the people behind the project.

“There are literally thousands of people who have made this their focus,” including 200 hospital volunteers, he said.

Dozier said she learned Friday that her son is free of disease. Nevertheless, whenever he gets a fever or a cold, he will return to the third-floor oncology ward in the new hospital.

Even though the surroundings will be different, the people will be the same, Dozier said. “All his friends are kids at CHOC,” she said. “And the staff is wonderful. You could not find a better group of doctors, nurses and secretarial staff. I would not go any place else.”