A ground-breaking ceremony on the new emergency room at Navarro Regional Hospital will take place at 10 a.m. Friday next to the current outpatient surgery center.
The new department is a response to the increased traffic at the current emergency room, according to Xavier Villarreal, chief executive officer of Navarro Regional Hospital.
“We started planning this at the end of 2008,” he said. “It started as a renovation and turned into an expansion project.”
The hospital is adding onto the building to create a brand new 9,000-square foot facility next to the Louis Gibson Outpatient Surgery Center.
The estimated cost of the project is $4.75 million, Villarreal said.
Currently, the emergency room has treatment “rooms” separated by curtains, and relies on the hospital’s diagnostic departments for x-ray and other services. The new emergency department will have 14 treatment rooms, including two large trauma rooms. Each will have actual walls, and all new equipment.
For patients, the biggest impact should come in more privacy, more pleasant facilities, and increase in the speed at which cases are taken.
“We have a lot of processes in the plan of how to improve speed in the emergency department, but space will allow us to handle higher volumes and treat more patients,” he said.
An express care center will be dedicated to minor illnesses and injuries, as well.
For the 20 or so employees, the biggest change will be a new digital radiology department just for the emergency room, a private consultation room where doctors and families can meet, and a new decontamination room for hazardous substance accidents.
All are new features designed to enhance the work of health care, and in many cases, improve efficiency.
Navarro Regional Hospital’s emergency room had between 21,000 and 22,000 visits last year, but this year could have more than 23,000, Villarreal explained.
“We want to make sure we can accommodate those,” he said.
The new emergency department will open around the end of 2010, but the current emergency room shouldn’t be affected by the construction work, Villarreal said.
“That’s the benefit of moving, we won’t have to shut down any services,” he said.
Navarro Regional Hospital employs more than 300 people. It is owned by Triad Hospitals, which owns more than 50 other hospitals in small cities and towns around the country.
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