UB, Kaleida Win Green Construction Award

UB Reporter Story: Published June 20, 2013

The new medical building in downtown Buffalo shared by UB and Kaleida Health received two honors at a local construction awards ceremony.

The 11th annual “Brick by Brick” awards, presented by Buffalo Business First, recognized Kaleida’s Gates Vascular Institute and UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center, which occupy the same footprint at the burgeoning Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

The $291-million building, a significant step in UB’s effort to relocate its medical school downtown, won the Golden Brick award, which is essentially the ceremony’s building of the year award.

Kaleida occupies the building’s lower floors, which are dedicated to the surgical and interventional management of cardiac, vascular and neurological conditions, as well as a 16-bed highly specialized intensive care unit and a 62-bed short-stay unit.

UB is using its portion of the building to expand its focus on translating basic medical research into new medical breakthroughs, innovative treatments and new economic opportunities.

The building also took the “Best Green Project” award.

The UB portion was designed to be certified gold under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. It has an array of sustainability features that minimize how much energy the building consumes and make use of natural light.

Additionally, the building is located near mass transit systems and is composed of materials from local sources.

UB last year received two “Brick by Brick” awards: one for Barbara and Jack Davis Hall, the new School of Engineering and Applied Sciences building, and the other for the William R. Greiner Residence Hall, a sophomore dormitory.

James H. Cummings Foundation Donates $1M to John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital


The John H. Cummings Foundation presented the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital with a $1 million gift to establish the James H. Cummings Foundation Epilepsy Monitoring Center. The donation is the largest gift ever given by the Cummings Foundation.

A neurologic disorder that nearly 2.2 million people throughout the country suffer from, epilepsy causes repeated and involuntary seizures. Although anti-epileptic drugs are available as a means to treat and minimize the seizures, many individuals still experience frequent episodes that affect their quality of life.

Serving both adults and children with epilepsy, the eight bed Epilepsy Monitoring Center is offering treatment to patients at the current Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo site. For the last 4 years, the center has been recognized as a Level 4 epilepsy center by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers.

Level 4 centers have the professional expertise and facilities to provide the highest level of medical and surgical evaluations and treatments for patients with complex epilepsy. Such centers provide long-term video EEG monitoring is available, can provide accurate diagnosis and allow for optimal therapeutic intervention, in particular evaluation for epilepsy surgery, tailored anti-epileptic drug therapy, implantation of vagal nerve stimulators or initiation of the ketogenic diet.

The new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital will function as a regional center for comprehensive and state-of-the-art pediatric, neonatal, perinatal and obstetrical services in Western New York.

“The James H. Cummings Foundation believes that having a state-of-the-art hospital focused on children’s needs is critical to our community,” stated Charles F. Kreiner, Jr., president of the James H. Cummings Foundation.

To-date, out of the $40 fundraising campaign goal for the Children’s Hospital, $30 million has been raised. The James H. Cummings Foundation continues a trend of major giving to support the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital, which includes the John R. Oishei Foundation, The Children’s Guild Foundation, The Margaret L. Wendt Foundation, New Era and Fisher-Price/Mattel.

The James H. Cummings Foundation was established to support the philanthropic vision of its namesake. Throughout its 51-year history, the Foundation has aided countless organizations engaged in advancing charitable interests according to the guidelines and policies espoused by Mr. Cummings.  Admired for his unassuming manner, friendly air, and a quiet generosity, Mr. Cummings was dedicated to giving back to the communities he called “home.”

The John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital is scheduled to be completed in December of 2015 on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. For more information, visit www.kaleidahealth.org/childrens/oishei/.

John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital Mock-Up Rooms Revealed

CHOB Mock Room News ConferenceSeven new mock-up rooms were revealed during  a tour inviting the media to view how rooms within the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital may look.
The mock-up rooms shown have walls erected, and some include installed equipment. The rooms presented were the neonatal intensive care unit; pediatric intensive care unit; pre/post operative room; labor and delivery room; an ED urgent care room; medical/surgical/mother-baby room; and an operating room.

Design for the rooms is physician-, nurse-, clinical and support staff-, patient- and family member-inspired. A part of 27 user-groups total, those who provided feedback had it incorporated into the initial mock-up designs in order to meet the needs of its primary users and to provide the best possible care. Additional feedback from the user-groups regarding the mock-ups will help to determine design suggestions to consider. The groups have signed-off in agreement with the interior design and floor plans for the new hospital, completing the design and development phase of planning. The Physician-led Steering Committee and user-groups will move forward with the development of new process flows for patient care and other hospital operations for the Children’s Hospital, and the ambulatory care center to be housed within Ciminelli Real Estate’s medical office building, Conventus.

Spacious and more aesthetically pleasing, the hospital’s room infrastructure is being designed to accommodate new technology as well. In addition to being able to offer input, the  groups get to use the newly constructed rooms to help develop new processes to deliver care within them. The goal for the hospital is for it to be recognized as the most innovative, highest quality, highest value provider and partner, and the regional referral center for women and children’s care for Kaleida Health in Western New York and beyond.

View a live webcam image of the construction site for the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and Conventus, which will be connected by bridges on the second and third floors to the new hospital. It is expected to open in 2016.

(Top Right Photo – Dr. Teresa Quattrin, Pediatrician-in-Chief at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo and UB Distinguished Professor, A. Conger Goodyear Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Allegra Jaros, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo provides an update on plans for the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital.)