VW Health expansion culmination of plan

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It was drizzling rain on Thursday when Van Wert Health broke ground on its new $45-million surgery/inpatient expansion project, but hospital officials are hoping the project will lead to a bright future for the local healthcare system.

After the groundbreaking, Van Wert Health Board Chairman Tim Jurczyk welcomed those in attendance and talked about the importance of the project.

“A commitment of this magnitude is not only a commitment to the future of Van Wert Health, but it’s a commitment to the residents of the Van Wert community and the surrounding communities we serve,” Jurczyk said. “We want to insure that everyone, both now and in generations to come, will have access to high quality care, advanced technology, and state-of-the-art facilities.”

Van Wert Health President/CEO Jim Pope said the project was all about people.

“The consistent part of everything that we do is we’re about people,” he said. “One of the things that this project is about, is giving our people the tools and equipment to do their jobs on a daily basis.”

In addition to the recently completed Van Wert Health North ambulatory clinic, the new hospital expansion is the culmination of a two-year strategic planning process that began soon after Pope was hired in 2016.

Pope said the strategic plan was a critical first step in determining where the hospital was currently, as well as where it needed to be in the future.

“We needed something to kind of guide our steps along the way,” he noted.

The strategic planning process first developed goals that included rebranding the hospital and making it the best community hospital and first choice for healthcare in the region.

When the plan was completed in March 2017, facility development was one of its biggest priorities, Pope said. That discussion led to the eventual construction of Van Wert Health North, but also resulted in the board and administrative staff having to decide what to do about the existing hospital facility.

In looking at the current hospital building, Pope said the question was whether to build new or renovate, and it quickly became apparent that renovation was not the answer.

“As we started comparing costs, every time we added up the cost to bring this older building up to date, we found that we were not going to end up with what we wanted, and it was going to cost more money,” the hospital president/CEO noted.

Pope said that, while the project is the best solution for the hospital’s facilities problem, it is an ambitious one for a small hospital like Van Wert.

“It is a big project for any hospital, but for a hospital our size, it’s a really big project,” he noted.

The hospital expansion will include four large surgery suites to accommodate modern surgical technology, including robotics, three endoscopy rooms, 16 private pre-surgical and post-operative rooms, a post-anesthesia care unit, a new pre-admission testing area that provides easy access to lab and x-ray services, and a private post-surgery pick-up area, as well as more private patient registration area, all new private acute care patient rooms, a dedicated critical care area that includes five intensive care unit rooms, all new obstetrics labor and patient rooms, a C-section suite and additional OB/GYN rooms, new IT spaces that will support modern information and clinical data systems, a new café, and a new lobby and parking areas.

Construction is expected to begin in September, with completion of the project coming two years from now.

Pope said the expansion project takes into account the role that families and technology play in modern patient care.

“Families are more involved with healthcare today than they were 50 years ago,” the hospital president/CEO said, while adding that technology is also more important to that process today than when the current hospital facility was built in 1958.

That means patient rooms need to be bigger to make them more comfortable for families, while surgical suites also need to be enlarged to accommodate all the equipment necessary for modern surgical procedures.

Pope noted that, while the design of the exterior of the new facility is completed, the interior is still a work in progress, adding that hospital officials are now trying to decide: “what do we need to create that will grow with us.”

Staff members are creating model rooms for the new facility on the fourth floor of the current hospital. When those are completed, physicians and other staff will then begin deciding where equipment and furnishings should be placed to provide the best and most efficient patient care.

Some things are already decided, Pope said, noting that elevators will be placed so that patients can be taken directly from surgical suites — and from the emergency room as well — directly to patient care rooms.

One of the first items to do for the new project, he added, will be to create a new parking lot, since a portion of the existing parking area will be lost to the new construction project.

While the new project will no doubt create distractions and challenges for hospital operations, the president/CEO said it will have immeasurable benefits for future local healthcare.

Once the new facility is completed, Van Wert Health officials will then begin to look at renovating the current hospital into administrative and physician consulting space.

Pope did stress that, since Van Wert Health is a 501(3)(c) not-for-profit community hospital, and not a county-owned hospital, the money for the facility project will not be coming from taxpayers.

“This is taking the funds that are generated by taking care of patients and reinvesting them back into taking care of patients,” he explained.

Hospital and community officials break ground on a $45-million surgical/inpatient expansion to the local hospital on Thursday.