OR OB Expansion
Investment to usher in new health care era
Conway Regional Board approves major expansion for Women's Center and Surgical facilities
Click here to print the OR/OB Expansion Special Bulletin
CONWAY-(February 29,2008)-The Conway Regional Board of Directors approved on Monday, February 25 to move forward with the planned expansion of the Women's Center and construction of a new surgery department at the Conway Regional Medical Center. The $25 million project, a final phase of an overall master facility plan, will also include enlarging the medical center's power plant to provide additional energy for the new 58,000-square-foot hospital expansion.
This will be the largest expansion project in Conway Regional history in terms of the monetary investment. Construction is expected to begin soon with projected completion in December of 2009.
The Board had approved conceptual plans for the project over a year ago and has been working with hospital administration and Cromwell Architects & Engineers to develop a preliminary layout and to define the full scope of the project. The next step in the planning process will be to consult with physicians and staff to finalize the drawings.
Initial plans call for construction of a two-story addition with the capacity to expand to a height of six stories, if needed, in the future. The addition would extend northwestward from the core of the medical center taking in a current parking area and connecting to the Barbara Harpe Nabholz Pavilion home of the Conway Regional Women's Center.
"This project will address two areas of great importance to our community and our physicians - additional space for obstetrics and expanded surgical suites," said Jim Lambert, Interim President/CEO and Chief Operating Officer. "Surgery has changed dramatically in the last 25 years since our current OR was built. Today we use more technology and equipment so we need to build a larger space that will hopefully carry us through another 25 years of providing excellent healthcare to this community. The OB component of this new project allows us to accommodate the growth in community demand and provide additional capacity for the services currently provided in the Women's Center."
"This is an exciting time for Conway Regional," said Dr. Margaret Beasley, Chair of the Conway Regional Health System Board of Directors. "When we began working on this project over a year and a half ago we knew that we would have to phase in this expansion. There were several dominoes that had to fall first as we relocated departments, cleared the space, planned for parking and prepared the location for this new construction. This innovative two-story structure will enable us to expand quickly to fully address the community's health care needs for surgical and obstetrics services for decades to come."
Plans call for the second floor to consist of nine operating rooms (two of which would be unfinished for future growth) and eight new obstetrics rooms, a post anesthesia care unit, a preoperative holding area, central sterile processing and storage area, and physician and staff lounge and locker rooms. The first floor will consist of a same day surgery area and covered parking.
The eight new obstetrics rooms represent a 50% increase in the number of rooms currently available and will accommodate the growing number of new babies born at Conway Regional. In 2007 physicians and staff at Conway Regional delivered 1,759 babies compared to the 1,387 babies born in 2001, the year that the new Women's Center opened. Based on the number of deliveries in January and February of this year there could be as many as 2,000 babies born at Conway Regional in 2008, making the Women's Center one of the busiest in the state.
The initial phase of this plan included the relocation of the Geriatric Transitional Care Center to the second floor of the medical center in 2007 followed by construction of additional parking lots to accommodate physician and employee parking that will be displaced by the addition. The restoration of the historic Frauenthal Estate allowed two departments to move from a location on Western Avenue, adjacent to the medical center, which then also made that space available for new parking.
The board's action on Monday signaled the beginning of this final phase of this project which will include removal of the one-story building that initially held the Geriatric Transitional Care Center. The plans will be finalized after physician and staff input and collaboration.
This new project will also pave the way for expanding the space for several other services in the Medical Center including the Emergency Department, Cardiac Cath Lab, Imaging Services and the Laboratory. A new cafeteria is also in the long range plans.
"As a community based, not-for-profit health system, it is our mission and responsibility to reinvest in health care services that benefit the community. The rapid growth of Conway and the surrounding areas demands this type of expansion to accommodate the health care needs of those we serve," said Lambert. "We are deeply grateful for the support we've received from this community over the past 70 years and we feel obligated to aggressively move ahead to complete the new facilities as soon as we can for the benefit of the community."
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