Samaritan physicians offer input for expansion concepts

Suites may be complete in February, May

Doctors at Samaritan Healthcare were called upon to give their diagnosis early Thursday morning.

The patient? Conceptual drawings presented by architects from Callison Architecture regarding the plans to develop a Caesarean section suite and an endoscopy suite.

Several members of the Board of Commissioners of Grant County Public Hospital District No. 1 were also in attendance at the meeting.

"With the C-section suite, it's both to free up space in the current surgery area, where we need more space, so it gives us a new O.R. on the second floor (and) to improve patient safety, because we don't have to take them down in an elevator," said Scott Campbell, Samaritan Healthcare marketing director. "We will have additional in-house nurse staff to support this, so we should be able to handle an emergency C-section as well as the regular labor and delivery. We're staffing for that contingency."

Reestablishing endoscopy out of an operating room is less expensive and less staff are required in a dedicated endoscopy suite, as well as freeing up operating room space, Campbell said.

"It's just the trend of where that service is going," he said. "When everybody over 50 is supposed to be getting an endoscopy, that means the volumes are going to be going up and it needs to be more patient-friendly."

Among the concerns that Dr. Jim Irwin, general surgeon, raised during the meeting were the number of beds needed to move patients in and out that are coming in for day surgery procedures.

"It's a start," Irwin said of the meeting. "I think they will (address my concerns). I think some more work needs to be done on it."

Dr. Jill Dudik Bross, pediatrician, spoke about the need to have patients be able to get to different units without having to go through other units.

"When you're going to the obstetrical unit, that needs to be a separate access than the med-surge unit; that was an issue," she said, adding that she also thought her concerns would be addressed. "They're very receptive; listening and paying attention."

"I think we gathered a lot of good information this morning, good ideas," said Martha Boes, associate for Callison Architecture.

The architects had two additional meetings Thursday, in which they would pass along the input from the physicians and any additional input along the way, Boes said.

"The architects came in March and spent two days here, looked at the initial space, met with a group of staff and physicians, and just came up with some concepts," Campbell said. "They just went through and identified blocks of space and said, 'OK, understanding your goals, we can meet your goals within these blocks of space.' Now, the next phase is to actually begin to design this space. All of this input from the physicians was really valuable, because it's still early enough in the design phase that we can say, 'How can we address their concerns?'"

Commissioner Mike Bolander said that there are two challenges when it comes to health care.

"One is that this building's been around for quite a while, so modifying (it) is always going to be a compromise based on cost and the physical structure that already exists," he said. "The other issue is … the rapid rate of change in the methods in the practice of medicine make it necessary for us to maintain flexibility as far as how we might change the building. "

Some of the design elements that were brought in during previous modifications are not ideal for the present methods of medicine, and the same will be true in ten years, Bolander said.

"With the growth and change in the community, as well as the changes in the practice of medicine, we're probably going to be at this again several times in the future," he said. "I see this one as an improvement, but I do believe we're going to have to continue to study, probably on a more or less on going basis, what we might do to improve the range of services that are available here at Samaritan."

Campbell said that the endoscopy project is supposed to be finished in February, and the C-section project in May.

"Based on some of this input, things might change and the scope of the projects might change, too," he said.