Quincy officials examining next steps to build new hospital

QUINCY — Quincy Valley Medical Center officials and commissioners will meet May 11 to discuss design ideas, anticipated costs and funding options for a new Quincy hospital.

Tom Richardson, QVMC director of information systems, said hospital officials advertised a request for qualifications from architects and construction firms interested in the project. Thirty responses had been received as of the hospital commission meeting April 26. Joe Kunkel, a consultant working with QVMC on the project, said additional responses were received April 27.

“Some pretty major corporations,” Richardson said during the board meeting. “Joe is very happy with what he’s seeing. It’s more than he expected back.”

Medical Center Administrator Glenda Bishop said in an earlier interview the new hospital, when built, will be the same size as the existing building. The new facility will be located on hospital-district owned property north of the existing building.

The Port of Quincy received a grant about two years ago to work with hospital officials on a facility assessment, Bishop said. Port and hospital officials worked with consultants from CollinsWoerman, a Seattle design firm.

“(The grant) let us go through the process and do a mock design of the building and try to figure out what it would take to give us a similar-type building in this location,” Richardson said.

“We’ve done a full assessment of (the existing) facility and a conceptual design of what would meet the needs of our community,” Bishop said.

The May 11 meeting will be to determine how commissioners want to go from here, including discussing the process and the criteria for selecting the architects.

“This would be the architect that we would work with to design the building with the actual blueprints,” Richardson said. “We’ll be talking about what we want to see, what qualifications and how we’re going to judge who we want to work with.”

That process also will include cost estimates, and possible options for funding.

Hospital officials are also soliciting the opinion of district patrons through a survey on the QVMC social media. The survey asks respondents about their experiences with medical care in Quincy, any barriers to care they have encountered in Quincy and what influences them when making a decision about where to go for medical care.

Precise details for the project have not been laid out yet, which is what the upcoming meeting will identify, officials said.

“What we do have so far is a conceptual design, which sort of lays down some (criteria), and a general cost estimate,” Bishop said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.