| Breaking New Ground |
|
 |
Sarah Williams and countless other East Bay women will be well served by Alta Bates Summit’s revamped Women’s Services. |
Sarah Williams may not think of herself as a typical female consumer, but in the world of women’s health care, she fits the bill. As a mother, grandmother and former caretaker of her ailing parents (now deceased), Williams is accustomed to taking charge of health care decisions and searching for providers and programs that meet her and her family’s ever-changing needs.
The good news for Williams, and countless other East Bay women, is that Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is designing leading-edge care with them in mind and—thanks to its staff’s vision and its foundation’s financial support—is taking ambitious steps to rethink and revamp Women’s Services. “To better serve women, we’re emphasizing coordination among physicians, convenient ways we will offer services, and surroundings that are gender-friendly,” says Katarina Lannér-Cusin, M.D., Alta Bates Summit’s first medical director of Women’s Services.
Everything from women’s cardiac care to obstetric services are being considered for patient-centered improvements, says Dr. Lannér-Cusin, adding that a stand-alone women’s center may one day be possible. Two projects at the Alta Bates campus that will support this focus are a garden adjacent to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit and a Family Resource Center that will feature a medical library, computers with Internet access and classes.
Williams may well speak for many when she applauds the extensive efforts under way. “Women will have a much easier go of it,” she says, “just knowing there’ll be a place to call or go to get the women’s services and information they need.”
|
