Richard Saunders, MD, and Michelle Graham, RN, stand in the new Medical Specialty Care Unit (MSCU) in the new Patient Pavilion at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.

LEBANON – When Dartmouth Health’s new Patient Pavilion at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) opens in May 2023, it will add an entirely new department: the Medical Specialty Care Unit (MSCU). The new space will feature 16 beds for patients who need a level of care in between floor-level and critical care.

“In the MSCU, the nurse-to-patient ratio will be smaller, and the monitoring more intense and frequent,” said Michelle Graham, RN, nurse manager for Medical Specialties Units, who, along with hospitalist Richard Saunders, MD, is leading planning for the MSCU. “Patients will get more individualized attention because they will be sicker than our regular patient population.”

These intermediate beds, also called stepdown beds, are an in-demand resource. “More stepdown beds will improve our ability to care for medically complex patients who need a higher level of care than we can provide on the floor, and free up our ability to care for the sickest patients in the region who need to be in our critical care units,” said Graham.

The new space offers a state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary approach to patient care, filled with new technology like integrated patient dashboards and MyChart Bedside, which allows patients to interact with their provider teams right at their fingertips. Each room is also family-centered, offering privacy and designed to allow for a visitor to easily stay in the room with the patient.

The MSCU will also offer DHMC flexibility, with the majority of beds being acuity adaptable. “The idea is that we will be able to provide both stepdown and general medical care within one space. That means we won’t have to move patients quite as often, which will improve the patient experience,” said Saunders. “The space in the new Pavilion will allow us to flex up our capacity to provide the care we know is needed in the region. The goal here is to do more of what we already do really well, which is to work within teams to provide the best care possible to patients and their families.”