Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and his wife Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, a Graduate School of Business professor, pledged $27.5 million to Stanford Hospital last Friday to build a brand new emergency room (ER).

With the donation, Stanford Hospital will be able to double the size of its current ER and install state of the art technology, including cardiac monitors and advanced ultrasound equipment in the facility, according to a statement released by the hospital.

The couple’s gift will also fund the purchase of communication systems to allow doctors to track patients as they move through the emergency department, according to the San Jose Mercury News, in addition to creating new staffing programs to improve customer service and allowing nurses to follow up with discharged patients, among other features.

In a press interview on Friday, Arrillaga-Andreessen ‘92, M.B.A. ‘97, M.A. ‘98, M.A. ‘99, daughter of real estate developer and Stanford benefactor John Arrillaga ‘60, revealed the couple’s motives for choosing to concentrate their money in ER construction.

“We wanted to do something that would have a profound impact on as many people as possible who are a part of this community or traveling through,” she said. “Emergency services are traditionally one of the most under-funded divisions of the hospital, but provide life-saving opportunities.

“The current emergency room was built in 1974,” she added. “It was designed to handle less than half of the volume of patients it receives now.”

Paul Auerbach, director of special projects for ER medicine, confirmed the need to re-vamp the current status of the Stanford ER.

“The gift will enable the emergency room to handle many more patients,” he said on Friday. “The emergency room now gets so full it has to refuse ambulances and all visitors except trauma patients for an hour or more.”

Construction on the new ER is scheduled to begin in 2010.

This is the first philanthropic endeavor that Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen have undertaken together since the couple married in 2006.