Hospital design process continues

Samaritan Patton clinic staff expanded

MOSES LAKE — A second physician’s assistant and a third family-practice physician have been added to the urgent care department at the Samaritan Healthcare clinic on Patton Boulevard.

Samaritan chief executive officer Theresa Sullivan said an internal medicine specialist visits the clinic one day each week.

The Patton clinic opened Oct. 18. The clinic has been busier than hospital officials expected, Sullivan said.

Sullivan gave an update on construction projects during the Dec. 17 meeting of the hospital commission. The public design workshops for the new Samaritan Hospital have been completed, she said, and the information from the previous workshop is being added to the design process. A final design proposal should be completed by July.

Hospital officials voted in March to construct a 50-bed hospital on property along Yonezawa Boulevard. The design workshops began in April, and an early design was unveiled last month.

The new hospital is forecast to be about 160,000 square feet in size. The building is expected to be three stories high, with each upper floor a little smaller than the floor below.

A new building will require financing, and Sullivan said hospital officials have submitted a preliminary application for financing to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She said hospital officials hope to have the final application to USDA completed by year end.

Extensive remodeling has been ongoing at Samaritan Clinic on Patton Boulevard. The first two phases of the three-phase project are almost complete, Sullivan said. Departments on the second and third floors still need some paint, carpet and other flooring, and some furniture. The new spaces should be open to patients by late January or early February, she said.

Sullivan announced that new and more powerful lighting has been installed in a hospital-owned parking lot on Plum Street, and that a morning and evening shuttle service for employees has been instituted between that parking lot and the hospital. The shuttle will be in service during the winter.

Hospital employees use that parking lot, which is about a block away from the hospital and requires climbing a flight of steps.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.