Wall murals, bay window seats, cream-colored walls, plush comforters and emerald-green throw pillows adorn the rooms and corridors. Roast chicken and broiled salmon arrive on white china.

The Four Seasons? Ritz-Carlton? No, it’s actually one of a growing number of four-star sickbays sprouting up around Los Angeles.

This particular one is The Women’s Place, a 3-month-old addition to the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. The 15-room unit primarily provides outpatient services to women undergoing gynecologic, eye or plastic surgeries.

It’s all part of a trend of hospitals modeling their services after hotels. Their message to patients: “Your stay with us will be downright pleasant; leave everything to us.”

Such bells and whistles are a response to growing patient demands that hospitals de-institutionalize themselves.

“Hospitals are trying to make themselves look less sterile and medicinal, almost like hotels. They’re creating an environment that makes patients feel that they haven’t left home,” said Ellen Ceaser, health care analyst at Crowell, Weedon & Co. in Los Angeles. “But you’re still in a hospital, no matter how you look at it.”

True, yet the aesthetically pleasing environments seem to be catching on, especially with patients who are hospital-averse.

Ana Osborn, 38, said she felt comfortable the minute she checked into The Women’s Place for her three-hour surgery. She said she appreciated the fact that her mother could stay with her for four days in the private room, sleeping on a pull-out lounge chair.

“Having a separate women’s center is a great idea, because we have such specialized needs. You don’t have to worry about men being around,” said Osborn. “Some of us are vain and don’t want to look bad in front of them.”

With rampant competition in Southern California, hospitals, like other service establishments, are driven to please customers even if it means shaving profit margins.

“There’s more pressure and impetus to implement customer services that please and satisfy patients,” said Maura Winesburg, vice president for quality improvement at Saint Johns Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica. “There’s a different philosophical thinking out there. Nowadays, people are embracing a more holistic approach to healing. For instance, they want carpets and nature scenes, compared to 20 years ago when they wanted gleaming corridors and sterile walls to show that a hospital is clean.”

Although a minority of patients are willing to pitch in for certain extravagances, most hospitals keep the extras all-inclusive.

For instance, the comfier setting at The Women’s Place costs no more than a regular hospital room at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center unless you want a private room, which runs an additional $100 a day.

Over at the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, patients are offered weekly visits with dogs, ranging from pugs to Great Danes, brought in by volunteers.

“The dogs completely change the tone of the place. Things get a bit louder. Everybody loves them, including the staff,” said Debra Gerardi, unit director for the medical intensive care unit and Wilson Pavilion, the ninth-floor VIP patient’s wing.

Mothers recovering from birth at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center can soothe themselves with music from their CD player, or if they’re feeling energetic, they can fax clients or watch videos on their in-room VCR after dining on lobster and filet mignon. Patients signing up for these deluxe obstetrics services are billed an extra $750 to $1,150 per night for staying in one of the four two-room suites.

“These rooms are booked well in advance. Some book as soon as they are pregnant,” said Elisabeth Hallman, director for women’s health at Cedars. “However, since births can’t be perfectly timed, we say first delivered, first served.”

Huntington Hospital in Pasadena is going high-tech with the completion of its new $45 million facility, which opens Dec. 7. Each room will have high-tech beds equipped with sensors to vibrate the bed at heavier pressure points, thereby preventing bed sores. The beds also will have built-in scales, so patients don’t have to get up to be weighed.

Patients in need of assistance will no longer merely buzz the nurses’ station. Their bedside button will activate an electronic badge worn by the nurse assigned to them. Patients with heart conditions can be outfitted with high-tech necklaces that will allow them to stroll the corridors freely and still have their vital signs monitored. The necklaces emit electronic signals that are picked up by ceiling antennas and transmitted back to monitoring stations.

“It’s going to be like ‘Star Trek.’ These upgrades were based on feedback we received from patients and physicians and nurses, who wanted us take the industry to the next level,” said Andrea Stradling, a spokeswoman for the hospital.