High-tech wellness center open for business

Downtown Express

May 25, 2011

By Marissa Maier | At the ribbon cutting ceremony for New York Downtown Hospital’s new Wellness and Prevention Center on Friday, May 20, Dr. Warren Licht recounted an all too familiar story to the crowd.

“All of us here today have made a visit to a doctor’s office,” said Dr. Licht, the hospital’s Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer.

Dr. Licht told of the traditional office visit with the sliding glass window separating the patient from the receptionist, the classic scent of Lysol in the waiting room and the cold and sterile exam room. The physician, Dr. Licht continued, lazily or hastily enters the room and it is with this person the patient is expected to impart their most personal information.

The new Wellness and Prevention Center promises a very different experience.

“What makes this unique is the patient experience,” Dr. Licht noted, adding that the space looks more like a boutique law firm than a traditional hospital facility.

What differentiates the new Center isn’t just the dark wood paneling and handsomely upholstered furniture in the waiting area, or the light green tones and flat screen televisions in the patient rooms. The Center provides a place where the hospital’s top physicians can collaborate in a facility equipped with state-of-the-art technology. And the focus of the facility, as New York Downtown Hospital President and CEO Jeffrey Menkes emphasized, is to prevent disease and maintain optimal health.

Click here to continue reading this story