Tulsa concentrates its hospitals in a way that makes get-well delivery unusually simple to route and unusually easy to get wrong for other reasons. Two of the metro's largest hospitals face each other across the same street: Hillcrest Medical Center at 1120 S. Utica Ave. and Ascension St. John Medical Center at 1923 S. Utica Ave., a few blocks apart in 74104, with the Oklahoma Heart Institute and the Kaiser Rehabilitation Center on the Hillcrest side. A driver can serve both on one stop of a route. A few miles south, Saint Francis Hospital occupies the large campus at 6161 S. Yale Ave. in 74136 — the building everyone in this city just calls the pink hospital — together with The Children's Hospital at Saint Francis, the Saint Francis Cancer Center and, on the same South Yale stretch, the Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital. Downtown, OSU Medical Center sits at 744 W. 9th St. in 74127 next to the OSU Center for Health Sciences. South and suburban: Saint Francis Hospital South on East 91st, Hillcrest Hospital South, Oklahoma Surgical Hospital on East 81st, the Ernest Childers VA Outpatient Clinic, and Ascension St. John's Broken Arrow, Owasso and Sapulpa hospitals inside the 18-mile radius.
The floor rules are where get-well orders fail, and they are not uniform building to building. Treat oncology and infusion as the strictest adult case: the Saint Francis Cancer Center and the cancer and infusion units at Hillcrest and Ascension St. John generally refuse lilies of any variety, heavily pollinated stems and anything with carrying fragrance, and many restrict live potting soil for immunocompromised patients — which rules out a potted plant until discharge, even though a plant is otherwise the better gift. Intensive care, neurological and burn units across all three systems are commonly flower-free by policy, with a lobby or waiting-room handoff to family the only way in. Pediatrics at The Children's Hospital at Saint Francis wants lily-free, latex-free, low-pollen and scent-free, and a neonatal intensive care unit typically accepts no flowers or plants at all — for a NICU family, send to the parent lounge or, better, to the house. Behavioral health at Laureate is its own category: glass vessels, ribbons, wire and cellophane are routinely not allowed on a psychiatric unit, and many will not accept deliveries at all, so call before ordering. Maternity, cardiac step-down, orthopedic and post-surgical floors are the permissive ones and take nearly anything. Safe defaults everywhere in Tulsa: alstroemeria, lisianthus, spray roses, carnations, gerbera and solidago in an unbreakable vessel under about fourteen inches, shallow enough to share a rolling tray table with a water pitcher.