With less than three months left until completion, many parts of the 51,000 square-foot expansion at Greene County Medical Center are clearly identifiable. Community relations director Carla Offenburger provided an insider’s look at progress as of April 17.
As people enter the new space from the main entrance, they’ll first come upon the outpatient registration desk and a waiting area. Those who are at the medical center for lab work or to see the radiology department (for a mammogram, for example) won’t need to go further. The outpatient department is in the interior of the expansion, without windows.
The windows people see from the south, across the south (front) of the expansion, are inpatient rooms. The new space is designed with patient rooms on the front with plenty of daylight, and rooms used by staff are on the interior and without windows.
The space will have room for 25 acute beds, the maximum for a Critical Access hospital. There are five private rooms, two private special care units, and two private labor/delivery/recover/postpartum (LDRP) rooms, all with private zero clearance (accessible) bathrooms.
Additionally, eight rooms will be set up as private rooms but have the space and the needed plug-ins to be double rooms, should a high patient load require that.
On both ends of the corridor are family waiting areas where “overflow” visitors can converse quietly or wait while patient care that requires privacy is done.
From the east side (Grimmell Road), folks see on their left the windows of the LDRP rooms and the emergency department.
The ER is easy to find and has a walk-in entrance with nearby parking. The ER entrance will be staffed 24/7. The ambulance entrance is on the right.
The surgical area is along the north (back) side of the expansion. The area is being built with two fully-equipped operating rooms, with a third operating room ready to be equipped at a future time.
There are eight private pre-op/post-op rooms for more privacy than surgical patients now have.
Like the surgical department, the radiology department is being built with an eye for future growth. The medical center does not plan now to purchase a MRI machine, but continue to use the mobile MRI that comes in a semi tractor-trailer.
However, a room is being built with the needed reinforced concrete for the time an MRI is purchased.
“The project is really focused on efficiency, privacy and access,” Offenburger said. She said the project has stayed on a budget that was as lean as possible.
“The project looks like ‘Oh, wow,’ but it’s ‘Oh, wow’ only when you compare it to what we’ve had. There is nothing extra in what we’re doing,” she said.
The medical center staff plans to host tours of the expansion Saturday, June 13, while visitors are in Jefferson for the Bell Tower Festival. Construction will not be completed until mid-July. After the various departments move into their new space, renovation will begin on the existing building. That work is expected to take another year.
