Samartian Hospital emergency room's remodel to start in November

MOSES LAKE — The emergency room at Samaritan Hospital will be remodeled in an effort to evaluate and treat patients more quickly and increase capacity.

Construction is scheduled to begin in November and will be completed in 2017. Total project cost is $1.18 million, interim Chief Financial Officer Paul Ishizuka said.

Hospital commissioners approved spending $754,981 at their regular meeting on Sept. 27. Commissioners had already approved about $425,000 for the project.

Ishizuka said the project could move ahead more quickly if the commissioners would approve the expenditure now instead of waiting until November, when the 2017 capital projects budget will be approved.

“We’re at a place where we could progress the project,” he said.

The ER was last remodeled in 2001, Ishizuka said, and the hospital staff has been working on a design for the last couple years. The redesign should be good for five to 10 years, he said.

Commissioner Julie Weisenberg asked if the remodeling meant an expansion in the number of available rooms. Kathryn Trumball, director of nursing, said three “quick care” rooms would be added.

The quick care rooms are for patients who can be treated and released in a relatively short time, she said. Trumball estimated that group makes up about 25 percent of ER patients.

The ER has nine rooms, and those nine rooms will remain, Trumball said. A room that now accommodates two patients will be remodeled into two one-patient rooms.

Some rooms are designated for specific treatments, Chief Executive Officer Teresa Sullivan said. Emergency room management will be changed so that any room can be used to treat any patient, she added.

Weisenberg asked if ER staffing would have to be increased. Trumball answered that’s not clear yet.

“We started out thinking we could handle it with the staff we have,” she said. But hospital officials think “very quickly the quick care is going to get really busy.”

In those circumstances it might be necessary to add at least one nurse, she said, and possibly more staff from there.

The changes to the ER are part of a larger intiative to improve patient care, which has been underway in 2016.