To design the five-level, $75 million HealthPartners Neuroscience Center opening Monday at 295 Phalen Boulevard, directors traveled as far as the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center in Cambridge, Mass., for ideas on how tokeep the atmosphere patient-friendly and aggressively state-of-the-art.

A recent tour of the facility illustrates that approach.

Inside the 130,000-square-foot facility, video cameras linked to two underwater treadmills record and analyze the gait of stroke victims in a climate-controlled therapy pool. A floor below, 16 privately-funded researchers surrounded by beakers, microscopesand hypersensitive digital scales search for cures to dementia and Alzheimers disease.

A floor above, images displayed on large flat-screen wall monitors will show patients the interior of their own tumors, spines and frontal lobes, a visual road map to complicatedmedical conditions. Clinical trials, physical rehab, patient diagnosis and lab work will all happen in the same building.

It was a really long journey making sure every aspect of the building was patient-centric, said Marny Farrell, the centers director of rehabilitation for outpatient services.

The result is anoutpatient clinical, rehab and research space dedicated to virtually any kind of neurological condition, from stroke trauma to spinal injuries, and dementiato amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

More than 50,000 patients a year are expected to use the new center, which will employ some 200 physicians and staffers.

More importantly, the centercombines neuroscience specialties under one roof, allowing them room to expand. And it frees up needed space at Regions and at HealthPartners two nearby clinical centers, at 401 and 435 Phalen Boulevard, where research and medical services also are growing.

As a result, rather than travel between three or more locations for care, dementia patients will be able to schedule an X-ray or MRI and meet with nutritionists, speech pathologists and other experts on the same day and in the same facility.

Before, it was very hard for patients to know where to go, said Dr. Bret Haake, chief medical officer with Regions Hospital, who oversaw much of the centers planning. In many academic centers, sometimes theres a lot of distance between what the lab is doing and applying it to patients.

Patients will range from hospital referrals to walk-ins, and services are being scheduled around specific types of neurological conditions.

The centers second and third floors are devoted to clinical care such as pain management, neuro-psychology and clinical research.

Large sliding doors on patient care rooms have been designed with wheelchairs in mind. Services have been segregated by noise and intensity, so a Gingko Coffeehouse and gym-like rehab center on the ground level are well removed from a meditation room and quiet areas where families might await a loved ones diagnosis.

From the rehab center, glass bay windows provide a ready line-of-sight to Regions Hospital and downtown St. Paul, as well an outdoor space fashioned with wide stone steps a practice walking area designed with stroke patients in mind.

Indoors, an overhead harness system linked to a programmable robot is capable of carrying up to 95 percent of the weight of a 450-pound patient, or as little as 5 percent. Sliding levels of support are designed to help patients regaining their ambulatory skills after a stroke or injury.

In a lower-level laboratory, groups of researchers are juggling some 40 projects related to neurological disorders, about half of them dedicated to Alzheimers. Among them, theyll publish between 10 and 20 academic papers annually. Their research tends to draw more private grants and donations than government funding, allowing greater flexibility.

Our work tends to be more cutting edge, based on prevention of brain and spine disease high risk, high reward, said Leah Hanson, senior director of neuroscience research.

Phalen Boulevard has had the early makings of a modern medical corridor; in 2005, HealthPartners built the first of two specialty centers with clinics that range in focus from ears, nose and throat to hands and plastics. The specialty center at 405 Phalen Boulevard opened that year, and 435 Phalen Boulevard opened in 2007.

The new Neuroscience Centerreplaced a smaller HealthPartners physical therapy clinic, as well as a private storage facility, and could help boost the health care companys visibility.

The structure was designed by BWBR Architects and built by Kraus-Anderson Construction.

Residents will be able to examine the finished product from the inside during a community open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 13.

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$75 million neuroscience center opens on Phalen Boulevard, St ... - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press