San Francisco’s newest state-of-the-art hospital, California Pacific Medical Center on Van Ness (designed by SmithGroup) is the latest addition to the Bay Area’s impressive health care system – it’s where you want to go when the going gets tough.

Besides the usual, it also has:

• A hand hygiene monitoring system that leverages the hospital’s Wi-Fi to automatically identify (via badges) when caregivers sanitize their hands.
• A smart pneumatic tube system that works like an underground freeway to deliver medications, samples and supplies.
• A water-saving system that captures rainwater from five rooftop gardens.
• And an underground tunnel provides for an easy jaunt across Van Ness to the new medical office building that provides outpatient services.

The hospital follows in the footsteps of its predecessor on the site, the old Jack Tar Hotel (renamed the Cathedral Hill Hotel). When it opened in 1962, the hotel was considered San Francisco’s ultimate in modernity and had closed-circuit television, a roof-top swimming pool and ice rink, and it was the first hotel in the City with air conditioning!

The City’s newest hospital is the first structure in North America to use “viscous wall dampers” (goo to you and me). This damper system helps reduce movement/shaking of the building during an earthquake, thus potential structure damage and probably lessens the risk of patients being tossed from beds during a quake.

For the history buffs among us, this CPMC facility is owned by Sutter Health and is one of Sutter’s 24 acute care hospitals. Sutter Health was founded in 1921 in response to the 1918 flu pandemic. Having started in Sacramento, it is naturally named after Sacramento’s Sutter’s Fort, which was constructed by John Sutter. Construction started in 1841, and it is doubtful that viscous wall dampers were used in its construction.

Speaking of history, did you know that when you are wheeled into an operating room, your surgical team goes through a checklist to help ensure safety? The concept of safety checklists was first introduced after a pre-World War II Army Air Corps test flight crashed as a result of pilot error on take-off, and was later adopted by hospitals.

Notes:
1). LISA is looking for a COO to help drive profitability so that LISA can become a global entity.
2). LISA is testing its game engine. The test game features the 39-story Jasper apartment building in San Francisco, which was designed by HKS Architects, built by BuildGroup, and developed by Crescent Heights, who sold it to Northwestern Mutual in 2020. The building is managed by Greystar. This introductory video was created by Pinch Media: Jasper Building Introduction Video