Ready to roll
UH to begin most of $50 million expansion Sunday Uniontown Hospital will be “ready to roll” on nearly all of its $50 million expansion starting Sunday. “We will be moving some patients into the new rooms in the patient tower,” said Paul Bacharach, hospital president and chief executive officer.
There are two floors in the new wing: 1 West, which houses rooms 1401 through 1428 for medical/surgery and orthopedic patients, and 3 West, rooms 3701 through 3728, for telemetry care patients.
The rooms also are adjacent to the hospital telemetry and intensive care units.
Because of the difference in ceiling heights in the different sections of the hospital, there is no second floor in the new tower.
“This area is dramatically different than the old part of the hospital,” Bacharach said, explaining that the expansion contains 56 private rooms, each about 220-square-feet and designed to best serve the safety and health of the patient.
Each room, decorated in pale greens, beige and wood tones, offers wireless computer access, cable television, beds equipped with Tempur-Pedic mattresses, private bathrooms with showers, a sofa that pulls out into a bed, lounge chair that doubles as a wheel chair, nurse’s sink and medication and supply storage area and extra folding chairs for visitors. There is even a handy rubber clip to display get-well cards sent to patients without having to perforate them with thumbtacks.
Visitor and staff lounges reflect the hospital’s concern for safety and comfort, hospital officials said. The lounge areas offer panoramic views of the area, including the ability to view the mountains to the east of Uniontown.
More like a hotel than a hospital, Bacharach said the overall design takes away the institutional feel of a health center and replaces it with something warmer and more homelike, all to benefit the patient and his family.
Many of the new rooms, Bacharach added, will house orthopedic patients. Older rooms in the hospital, most of them semi-private, are being converted to private rooms. Overall, the hospital’s occupancy rate will remain about the same, although new construction has added rooms.
“We will have the capacity to handle more patients under unusual circumstances,” he said.
The patient tower is designed with a center section parallel to two hallways of patient rooms on two floors. Betty Ann Rock, vice president and chief nursing officer, pointed out changes in the way nurses will staff the new rooms.
“There is a central nurses station but we will have pods located closer to the patient rooms,” she said.
She explained that each pod contains a rolling wireless computer that can be taken into patient rooms through doorways opening to either side of the floor.
The hospital also will have an automated medication system that will select and dispense the proper medicines. The hospital pharmacy will stock each unit daily. Barcodes will be used to match the medications to the patient.
“If all the barcodes (one each on the medication, the patient and his chart) don’t match, then the patient won’t get the wrong medication,” Rock said.
“This system is designed to get the right medicine to the right patient at the right time,” said Dr. Josef Vanek, president of the hospital medical staff.
Vanek said the rooms and staff areas also are more doctor-friendly.
“We have been dealing with shared rooms for years,” said Vanek. “Sometimes it’s difficult, when you have to talk to a patient about a serious medical condition, and there are other people in the room visiting the other patient, to convey information. The new rooms offer the patient privacy, safety and for some elderly patients, less confusion, all in a warmer environment.”
The layout of electrical and equipment receptacles also expresses improvement: there are two sets, one on each side of the bed so equipment can be placed where it is out of the way of the patient and staff.
Each of the floors has a nurse director: Beth Carolla, 1 West, and Misty Fisher, 3 West.
Carolla, who was leading tours of the patient tower for doctors and medical staff, said there also is an exit room where patients can be taken in emergencies.
“We can keep them there for up to two hours, such as in a fire, until they are rescued or it is safe to return to their rooms,” she said.
She added there will be “bedside reporting to patients so everyone is on the same page on what has happened on this shift and what is expected to happen on the next shift.” Carolla, who also was involved in decorating the new rooms, met with the architects on color schemes and patterns.
“I enjoyed that very much. If I ever leave nursing, maybe I will get into decorating,” Carolla said.
The hospital closed its old entrance on Delaware Avenue and opened a new main one in July. The entrance for emergency services also was changed at that time.
The opening of the new patient tower marks completion of the next phase of the expansion program.
The balance of work, including completing new patient areas in the emergency room, a coffee shop and outdoor “healing garden” will be finished in the first part of 2010, according to Karen Dei Cas, hospital director of development and volunteer services.
Hospital police and volunteers will guide people through the new portion of the hospital as well as into the new parking along Delaware Avenue, Dei Cas said.
In addition, the hospital volunteer corps, about 120 strong, has established a concierge/patient transport service to help patients and visitors through the new areas and connect to services in existing portions of the hospital.
“We are making every effort to provide ease of access through our facility’s main lobby to both the areas of service in the newly constructed and renovated areas and the existing services in the hospital,” Dei Cas said.
The overall project, Bacharach said, includes adding 75,000-square-feet of new space and renovating about 30,000-square-feet of old space. Two major elements are 14 new emergency examination rooms and the 56 new patient rooms in the tower above the new entrance.
“We will have 194 acute patient rooms and 38 skilled nursing services rooms. We also are evaluating establishing a geriatric psychology department since we have so many older residents in our area,” Bacharach said.
Other improvements, Bacharach added, are locating medical records, scans and other paperwork for patient pick-up off the main lobby, locating the hospital police department between the new lobby and the emergency department, giving patients who are ready for pickup a paging device to ease their departure, installing new elevators, vending areas and overhauling the hospital’s boiler facility to include new air-handling equipment and backup generators in case of disaster.