By Dean Olsen for The State Journal-Register
Vinyl floors that look like wood, real wooden doors and operating rooms 50 percent to three times larger than older facilities in the hospital are among amenities in the new surgical areas at Memorial Medical Center.
Reducing delays in elective surgery was the main goal of the $31 million surgical expansion, covering 62,000 square feet and expected to begin serving patients in late February.
The area, which boosts surgical space by one-third, is part of $152 million in overall renovations underway at the 500-bed hospital.
Included in the total project is $59 million for the construction of 114 new private patient rooms on three floors. Those floors will allow the hospital to offer all private rooms by the project’s completion in early 2016.
In addition to reducing bottlenecks in scheduling patients for surgery, Memorial officials said they used the opportunity to build into the new area various features to put nervous patients at ease and satisfy their desire for more privacy.
“We’ve tried to take a holistic approach to the patient-care experience,” Harry Schmidt, Memorial Health System vice president for facilities management, said Tuesday before Memorial employees began touring the new area.
