State Health Authority Approves New Emergency Department
For Baystate Medical Center’s Hospital of the Future
Advanced trauma unit, 3½ times the size of current ED, to open in fall of 2012;
Media are invited to visit the future ED space today at 11 a.m.
SPRINGFIELD, February 10th--The Massachusetts Public Health Council yesterday approved Baystate Medical Center’s request to meet urgent community needs by expediting construction of a new emergency department as part of Baystate’s Hospital of the Future project now underway.
The new emergency department, 70,000 square feet in size--3½ times the size of the current ED--and with nearly double the number of treatment areas, will include a separate pediatric triage and treatment area, an urgent care center, eight rooms specifically designed for behavioral health services, and an adjacent space for diagnostic imaging such as X-ray scanning. The new ED is scheduled to open by early fall of 2012, just a few months after the March 2012 opening of the first phase of the building project.
“Our ED patients will receive care in a significantly improved, modern facility with enhanced privacy that is appropriately sized for the volume of visits,” said Mark R. Tolosky, JD, FACHE, President and CEO of Baystate Health. “So many positive forces have come together to make this happen, from community and staff compelling us to re-examine the possibility of building a new ED sooner than originally planned, to receiving the state’s approval, to being able to take the project on due to favorable financing and lower-than-anticipated construction costs.”
Baystate Medical Center is the only Level 1 trauma center in western Massachusetts. Its emergency department is one of the busiest in the Northeast, having cared for about 114,000 patients in 2010—in a decades-old space intended to accommodate far fewer.
The new ED will feature 94 single-patient treatment areas, including 17 pediatric treatment areas, three adult trauma bays, a dedicated pediatric trauma bay, and separation of patient-care areas from ‘backstage’ space for equipment, support and other functions.
“In the next several months we will be finalizing ED plans with input from staff and community members to ensure the new care environment supports the high quality and often life-saving care our ED staff deliver,” said Tolosky.
Building the new emergency department while the broader Hospital of the Future expansion is under construction—rather than after the project’s first phase is complete—enables Baystate to maximize efficiency and minimize costs of the new building. The new ED, at $45 million in construction costs, will increase the overall Hospital of the Future project cost from $251 million to $296 million.
The Public Health Council of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health considers and approves or denies Determination of Need applications for healthcare building projects such as Baystate’s Hospital of the Future. The approval for the new emergency department at Baystate Medical Center came at a hearing in Boston on Wednesday morning.
“For several years we’ve been revisiting the question, ‘Can we build a new ED?’ and now the answer, thankfully, is yes; we can build a new ED, with the help of our community,” said Tolosky.
For more on the Hospital of the Future project visit http://baystatehealth.org/hospitalofthefuture |
