| REDLANDS, CA - Hospital employees, community leaders and dignitaries became a part of history when they signed their names on the final beam of Redlands Community Hospital’s new $47 million, three-story, Surgery Center and Maternal/Child Services Building. Invited guest got the opportunity to see the signed beam raised by cane and positioned into its final resting place at the hospital’s Topping Out Ceremony. |
| |
| "We are looking to the future as we begin the next phase of our development," said President and CEO Jim Holmes. "With the addition to our current structure, we will increase the hospital’s bed capacity by 45 beds, bringing our total to 220. We are well on our way to enhance and expand our facility to meet the healthcare needs of our community." |
| |
| The hospital relocated several departments and services from the area where the new building would be constructed. It required the demolition of older portions of the hospital which stood on the site of the future building. These areas dated back to 1929. Non-clinical services have been in those areas since the early 1980s. These services were moved to other buildings on the hospital campus, including the new Weisser Education Pavilion which was completed in April 2005. Demolition of the older buildings began in late May and concluded on the day of groundbreaking. |
| |
| Now the hospital can move forward with construction of the long-awaited 71,000 sq. ft. three-story Surgery Center and Maternal/Child Services Building. |
| |
| The first floor of the building will be home to a new state-of-the-art surgery center which features eight surgical suites. Each suite will be larger than the previous surgery rooms in order to accommodate advanced technology, including robotics and other equipment. |
| |
| Other features of the surgery center include customized nursing modules, an anesthesia room, a central sterile supply area, 18-bed recovery area, and physician consultation rooms. Patients and visitors enter the lobby and waiting areas directly from the front parking lot. Two visitor elevators and two patient elevators connect the three floors. A landscaped courtyard will be located between the surgery center and the existing hospital building, providing a pleasing outdoor setting. |
| |
| The second and third floors will be home to Maternal/Child Services and feature additional beds to accommodate more mothers and babies and an enlarged Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The hospital has been averaging more than 200 births per month and the hospital expects that number to continue increasing due to additional housing developments throughout the East Valley. |
| |
| The second floor will include ten family-centered birthing rooms for labor, delivery, and recovery, a substantially larger Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with 16 NICU beds, two Cesarean Section surgery suites, and three special labor rooms. |
| |
| The third floor will feature 24 postpartum beds for recovering mothers and their babies. The new postpartum rooms were designed to accommodate our new Couplet Care Model which emphasizes keeping the baby in the room with the mother and family members more. This enables a stronger bonding between mother and baby. Keeping them together has proven to be very beneficial during the newborn’s first few days of life. It also helps the family members in their transition to having a new baby at home. |
| |
| A larger newborn nursery on the third floor will care for babies when they are not in the room with the mother. There is also a conference and education room on the third floor for nurse training and pre-natal classes. |
| |
| "The hospital ambitious goal to build the hospital of the future with our 25-year Master Plan is moving along with fervor," continued Holmes. "Last year, our emergency department treated more than 37,000 patients, we performed 6,000 surgeries, 13,000 people stayed in the hospital and we delivered nearly 2,400 babies. In addition, the hospital provides more than $6 million in uncompensated charity care to needy people in our area and offers low-cost or no-cost care to the uninsured at our family clinics located in Yucaipa and Redlands." |
| |
| Completion of the new building construction is estimated to occur in Spring 2007. |
