For staff at the University Medical Center at Princeton, moving day last week presented some unique challenges. Among the 110 patients transferred May 22 from the old hospital on Witherspoon Street to the new, $522.7 million building on U.S. Route 1, were one who is 101 years old, another who weighs 550 pounds, and six women in labor.

The opening week also included an announcement by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office that the hospital’s former director of Medical Staff Services had been charged with stealing a total of $186,000 from the PCHS Medical Staff account over a year and a half.

Otherwise the carefully planned transition from Princeton to Plainsboro “went flawlessly,” according to Barry Rabner, the hospital’s CEO. “We started at 7 a.m. and were aiming at finishing by 2:30 p.m. By 2:20, we were done. And we didn’t get any negative feedback from the families or the patients themselves.”

On the first day of operations, the hospital’s new emergency room opened for business at 7 a.m., and the first patient arrived two minutes later. By the end of the first 24 hours, 135 patients had been seen, which is more than usual, Mr. Rabner said. They included eight students from John Witherspoon Middle School, involved in a bus crash on Valley Road late that afternoon. The students, members of the school’s baseball team, were transported to the hospital along with the bus driver. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

Inevitably, there were glitches during the opening week. The hospital’s management team, which has been meeting every morning and afternoon since the move, has been working on problems with signage, staff parking, and the computer system. “We have an office set up just to get feedback real-time, and then to work on solutions,” said Mr. Rabner. “It looks like things are settling down and we may be able to back down a bit with that.”

Responding to complaints that signs directing people to the emergency room were inadequate, 27 temporary signs were installed while the permanent placards are created. Nearly all of the blue “H” signs, which the communities surrounding the hospital are responsible for providing, have now been installed.

Inside the hospital, patients and their families were having trouble finding their way around. “We have to do better with the internal way-finding,” Mr. Rabner said. “So we now have greeters at each entrance, and we have deployed more volunteers to help with that. We have put up more internal directional signs. It’s going better now. Part of that, I’m sure, is because the staff are becoming more familiar with everything so they can help direct people to where they need to go.”

The hospital’s computer system also needed refining. “There are thousands of them, and getting them all to print and do everything else they need to do was an issue,” Mr. Rabner said yesterday [May 29]. “But by this morning’s meeting, it sounded like things are working as they should.”

The Arrest

The arrest of Jhoanna Engelhardt-Fullar, who was terminated from the hospital last February when the theft of $186,000 was discovered, was not unexpected by UMCP, Mr. Rabner said. Bail was set at $35,000, which she posted on May 24. Ms. Engelhardt-Fullar is charged with writing company checks to herself and making unauthorized debit card purchases between April 2010 and February 2011.

“For us, the good news was that we have an internal audit department, and they uncovered the problem last year,” said Mr. Rabner. “We called the police and terminated the employee. It’s unfortunate, but it’s being dealt with.”

Patient Response

To help gauge patient response to their experiences at the new hospital, staff members have been calling everyone who was treated during the first week, whether as an inpatient, outpatient, or in an emergency room visit. According to Carol Norris, vice president of Marketing and Public Affairs, the response has been positive. “Most patients are reporting that they were happy overall,” she said in an email. “Some patients told us that they had challenges finding their way around the campus and/or in the hospital building itself. We have addressed this by providing additional greeters and directional guides in the atrium and adding some temporary directional signage on the exterior and interior of the building, which we plan to replace with permanent signage as needed.”

Planning for the new hospital began nine years ago, and construction has been underway since 2008. When the last patient left the 93-year-old building on Witherspoon Street on May 22, nurses and staff members lined the hallway and applauded. When that same patient was brought into the new building, the same unofficial welcoming ceremony took place.

“For me personally, it was very emotional,” said Mr. Rabner. “Up until then, it was just a building. And now, all of a sudden, it’s a hospital. That was just overwhelming —- and very exciting.”