Hospital design would reflect needs as area population ages
By Anne Blankenship — Daily Freeman-Journal Staff Writer
POSTED: May 9, 2008
Architects from Pope and Associates of St. Paul, Minn., revealed some preliminary information about the new Hamilton Hospital project Thursday afternoon as they work towards a developing a design for the structure. Hospital staff, community members and hospital trustees gathered to hear an update on the project.
The architects and consultants have been meeting with staff in recent weeks to get an understanding of the space needs, patient volumes and demographics.
Mary Gorman, medical planner for Pope and Associates, and herself a nurse, said, "We're beginning to see some trends with regard to the demographics and volume. Knowing who's coming through your doors helps us when it comes to developing our plan."
Gorman said the number of patients admitted was remaining static, but patient days were continuing to increase. The "patient days" number reflects the length of stay at the hospital, she explained.
"We're living longer and we are seeing more frail conditions that require longer stays. "
Gorman said that the volume studies showed that several departments have shown growth that should continue into the future. The studies revealed imaging, including X-ray, CT scans, ultrasound, now perform about 7,500 tests per year but Gorman said she expected that number to double in the next decade. Rehabilitation, including physical therapy, speech, occupational and respiratory therapy, and cardiac rehabilitation, is another area where service volumes could dramatically increase in the next 10 years, she said.
Gorman said the surgical department was the one area where the consultants were still reviewing volumes.
Taking all of the demographics and volume information into consideration, Gorman said the space requirements for the new hospital totaled 88,369 square feet, slightly more than the present hospital.
"Keep in mind that these numbers are very preliminary and we are still looking at places where space can be scaled back. But, having said that, we're only going to build this once. So this is an opportunity to build what makes sense," she said.
Paul Rode, the project design architect, showed slides of about 35 hospital and medical buildings and asked his audience to rank whether they liked, disliked or were neutral on the design of the buildings. He said the exercise would give the architects a feel for what style and esthetics the audience would like to see in the new building.
Four site plan options were also discussed. Paul O'Malley, project manager, showed two, two-story options and two, single story options, with the building entry oriented toward Superior Street on the one-story plans, and toward Highway 20 on one of the two-story diagrams.
"Judging from your comments, I would say the one-story plan is what you would like to see," O'Malley said. He explained that one of the challenges of the one story configuration included keeping the helipad close to the emergency department, but far enough from patient rooms so noise would not be an issue. He said other challenges would be arranging the facility so that future expansion of the diagnostic services would be possible, while allowing space for a possible future medical clinic, skilled nursing facility or other expansions.
Hamilton County Supervisors Wes Sweedler and Doug Bailey were on hand for the discussion, and urged hospital board members and community members to attend the traffic committee meeting on May 19 at 4 p.m. The committee will be reviewing suggested access road plans for the courthouse/jail and the new hospital. The committee will then send the recommendation on the city council for review.
Contact Anne Blankenship at lifestyles@freemanjournal.net.
