By Andis Robeznieks for Modern Healthcare
The emergency, urgent-care, and labor and delivery departments at the new Parkland Memorial Hospital opened in Dallas at 6 a.m. Thursday. A half-hour later, the three-day process began to move some 650 patients from the old hospital, built in 1954, over to the new $1.3 billion, 2.5 million-square-foot facility.
Parkland, which serves as the area’s main safety net and teaching hospital, experienced its first birth at 9:40 a.m. It was a boy delivered via C-section.
Mike Malaise, Parkland senior vice president of communications and external relations for Parkland Health & Hospital System, said the process actually began in 2008, when area voters approved a $747 million borrowing plan to build a new hospital by an 82-18 margin. Construction began on the new hospital Oct. 28, 2010.
“It’s had overwhelming public support, starting with the vote and culminating with the opening,” Malaise said.
Planning and training for the move has taken more than a year, Malaise said. The preparation has included using actors as stand-ins for patients in “day-in-the-life scenarios” as the move team prepared for anything that could go wrong.
But, when the move is finished on Saturday, Malaise said, there will be little opportunity to reflect on the magnitude of the task they just completed.
