Evergreen Hospital has opened its new emergency department (ED) and the top three of six floors for private patient care in a brand-new building. The $120 million project - which includes 475 parking spaces in an underground garage - took around two years to complete.
The three new floors for patient care have room for 96 beds, and the other three floors represent a future capacity of 192 beds all together, along with room in the future for up to six operating rooms, four catheterization labs and multiple pre-op and post-op areas, according to an Evergreen press release.
The number of patient beds in the ED has also shot up to 42 from 24, but that number and the other 96 patient beds don't represent a net increase that would require a Certificate of Need from the state, said hospital spokeswoman Beth Zborowski.
Getting a Certificate of Need is a complicated process that requires a hospital to show that adding more beds won't pose an unfair advantage over other hospitals in an area.
But it wasn't necessary in this case because the new beds and rooms are replacing ones in the old wing "primarily because they are not ADA-compliant," Zborowski said.
"They haven't decided what to do with that [space]," she said, adding that several departments in the hospital are interested in using the freed-up space for offices or storage.
The new beds on each floor are in single rooms, except for rooms with four beds that will be used to treat acute medical conditions, said director of medical surgical services Debbie Brown during an April tour of the new facility.
The nurses' stations on each floor are also in the center of the rooms, so it will be easier to keep track of patient needs, she said. The top floor will have 16 isolation beds with reverse airflow "in case we have some sort of pandemic event," Brown added.
That doesn't sound like much, but it doesn't necessarily have to be, according to Dr. Warren Appleton, medical director of the emergency department at Evergreen. "All pandemics are not going to be overwhelming," he said. "It's better than anyone else has done," Appleton said of Evergreen's approach.
To avoid confusion, the layout of each of the new patient-care floors is identical, said Brown, a registered nurse. Each room also has pass-through doors, which can be used to remove garbage and drop off meds, she said. And daybeds will be available for family members to spend the night in a patient's room, Brown added.
There are other refinements. In the past, used syringes had to be thrown away, Appleton said. In the new wing, they can be recycled and so can the sharps containers, he said. "It's part of reducing our carbon footprint."
There are also high-tech features in the new digs. "This whole thing is Wi-Fied," the doctor said. That means the staff can take their laptops with them wherever they go, making communications between doctors and nurses easier. "It makes it much more fluid and efficient," Appleton said. It also will save on the cost of dictation, he added.
INCLUDES HELIPAD
The new ED includes a ground-level helipad as well, pointed out Dawn Parker, director of the emergency department. Helicopter pilots prefer to land on the ground rather than on the roof because of problems caused by wind, she said.
At 42,000 square feet, the new ED is more than four times the size of the old one, Parker said. "So this is a huge change for us." Seating has also been increased in the ED, she added. "But our goals is to really increase through-put and eliminate some of the waiting."
The new facility also has a decontamination room that is entered from the outside and leads to an isolation room so patients don't have to go through the ED, Parker said. It has six showerheads, she noted. "So you can do a pretty large crowd in here."
The hospital staff understands the frustration of ED patients who end up waiting for what seems a long time, Parker said. But down the road, one of Evergreen's goals is to have patients move from the door to treatment in 30 minutes, she said.
"We will have 32 acute-care beds and 10 fast-track beds," Parker said of the fairly sophisticated, rolling beds. "So that will really help our patients as well."
PROUD PARENTS
Appleton and the women on the tour were acting remarkably like proud new parents of a wonder child as they walked around the new facility. Asked if it was exciting to have a brand-new ED, Appleton said: "I think it is, but I don't think they'll will really know it till they [staffers] get here."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or (206) 461-1309.[[In-content Ad]]
