James F. Padbury, MD and Betty R. Vohr, MD give a tour of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. The NICU has multiple family rooms where loved ones can visit patients and staff host family events. All clinical staff carry mobile devices to communicate and receive alerts about patients. Families send thank you cards expressing gratitude to the nurses. The NICU was designed architecturally to feel like one connected space across two floors. High-definition imaging stations are available for doctors to view diagnostic images. Private patient rooms are identical to make navigation easier for staff.

1. James F. Padbury, MD, pediatrician-in-chief, and Betty R. Vohr, MD, director of the
neonatal follow-up clinic, stand in the reception area of the Women & Infants Hospital
of Rhode Island’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

2. This family room is one of multiple spaces reserved for NICU patients’ loved ones.
Women & Infants encourages families to build relationships with each other and hosts
about a dozen events for families in this space every month, according to Padbury.”

3. All clinical team members carry a mobile device like the one shown to communicate
with each other and to receive patient alerts.

4. Padbury views a bulletin board covered in several weeks’ worth of cards and notes
that patients’ family members sent to NICU staff members. “To all the nurses that took
care of my baby in the NICU that I didn’t get to thank personally, thank you for
everything you did for my family,” read one mother’s letter.

5. Padbury takes the stairs from the family room to the second floor of the NICU. “This is
our attempt architecturally to draw the two floors together so that it feels like one
surface,” he said.

6. Padbury points out the high-definition diagnostic image viewing station in the NICU
team room. An identical station is situated in another team room on the NICU’s second
floor.

7. Each private patient room in the NICU is identical to the others to make navigation
easier for staff, whether looking for an electrical outlet or clean sheets.

8. This photograph rests against the wall in a conference room used for educating at the
teaching hospital, which is affiliated with Brown University Alpert Medical School. “It’s
for the young people,” Padbury said. “They don’t know what it used to be like.”

9. NICU clinical team members converge for a meeting in the hallway during their
morning rounds.

10. Resident pediatrician Carly Guss, MD, pushes a workstation on wheels through the
NICU hallway toward a patient’s room.