ValleyCare to Name More Projects in Coming Months
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Announcements regarding capital improvement projects at ValleyCare Health System of Ohio’s other facilities are expected over the next six to 18 months, the system’s CEO said.
Word of future upgrades came following Tuesday’s afternoon’s announcement that ValleyCare, a subsidiary of Community Health Systems Inc. of Nashville, plans a three-story addition and upgrades of existing space at Northside Medical Center. The $20 million project is the largest expansion at Northside since 1998, ValleyCare officials said.
“We will have some opportunities to have some capital improvement projects at all of our facilities in the course of the next few years – the next few months, I should say – but that’s yet to be unveiled,” said Kirk Ray, CEO of Northside and ValleyCare.
ValleyCare was formed following CHS’s purchase of the primary operating assets of Forum Health Inc. in 2010. In addition to Northside, those assets include Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland. At th time, CHS committed to $80 million in capital upgrades to the ValleyCare assets over a five-year period. To date, ValleyCare officials report it has invested $50 million to improve the hospital, update technology and medical equipment, and recruit physicians.
The announcement comes as Humility of Mary Health Partners is undergoing a $203 million expansion of its three area hospitals announced a year ago. Those include the addition of a seven-story tower at the St. Elizabeth Boardman Health Center, now under way, and nearly $65 million in upgrades expected to begin next year at the St. Elizabeth Health Center campus in Youngstown.
The plans announced Tuesday by ValleyCare include adding a 30,000-square-foot tower at Northside that will expand the emergency department and create a new main entrance, as well as modernizing more than 28,000 square feet of the existing hospital. “If you drive around our campus, there’s never really been an identifiable front door or main entrance to this hospital,” Ray said.
The project will add 21 private patient holding rooms and a new endoscopy area to Northside. An early July groundbreaking for the expansion is planned, and completion is anticipated in November or December of 2014.
The decision to expand Northside was driven by listening to patients. “Historically we’ve had difficulty maintaining privacy and throughput in our emergency room,” he said. The decision was made to develop an ER that offered greater privacy, was more aesthetically pleasing and would help improve volume and enable the hospital to continue to meet its 30-minute pledge.
During the project there will be a temporary main entrance to the hospital, and additional signage and personnel will be stationed throughout the hospital to “make sure people are getting to the right department at the right entrance so they can get services timely,” Ray said. “Anytime you have an add-on project at a facility there’s always going to be a little bit of interruption,” he acknowledged.
He also anticipated the expansion will mean opportunities to bring on additional staff to accommodate the anticipated increase. “Typically you’d see 10% to 15% increase in volume with any new emergency room,” he said. He conservatively estimates volume will increase from 30,000 emergency room visits now to 35,000 following the expansion. “That would be a big growth for us in terms of emergency patients and obviously we need more staff to be able to accommodate that,” he said.
The announcement drew a positive response from a spokesman for one of the unions representing workers at Northside.
"This is a good day for the future of Northside Medical Center and the ValleyCare Health System," remarked Anthony Caldwell of Service Employees internaitonal Union District 1199. "Workers at ValleyCare have been discussing the possibility of renovating and expanding the hospital for months and this announcement shows a real commitment by ValleyCare to the Mahoning Valley."
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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