The Shadow
HOT SPRINGS – Bath Community Hospital is prepping for a facelift.
A $17 million renovation and construction project is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2013 and continue through 2015.
The goal is to complete the project without disrupting service to patients as construction progresses.
When completed, the hospital will nearly double in size from 30,908 square feet to 55,471 square feet.
Bath Community Hospital CEO Debbie Lipes and David Troast, chairman of the hospital board of directors, recently discussed the project. Troast outlined these plans during the recent Bath County Chamber of Commerce Business Appreciation Dinner.
“This is Debbie’s vision of bringing the hospital from the 20th century into the 21st century,” Troast said.
Phase I of the project scheduled to begin in 2013 includes construction of a new emergency room and renovations to the laboratory and radiology departments on the ground floor.
The second and third floors will house offices for doctors.
Plans also call for the demolition of the current doctors’ offices and construction of a helipad at the front door of the hospital.
Phase II in 2014 calls for reorganizing service areas, moving the dietary department back to the hospital, moving the purchasing department from Mitchelltown back to the hospital and relocating administrative offices from a house on the hospital campus back to the main hospital.
“By 2015, what we will have on-site here is what for all intents and purposes is a brand new hospital,” Troast said. “What you’re looking at is a three-story addition built on the front of the existing hospital.”
Lipes chronicled the recent history of construction and renovations at the hospital. In 1980, an older building housed the entire hospital operations. The current doctors’ offices had been built in 1970, while the patient wing was constructed in 1980.
The goal then was to have all services housed on the hill in a manner that resembles the hospital layout of today.
This occurred in 1994 when construction was completed on the current emergency room, lab and radiology departments along with the lobby.
“Following that, there were monies left from that project where we went back and we renovated the inpatient wing about 1995 or 1996,” Lipes recalled. “Then in 1996 or 1997 we went in and renovated the doctors’ office building and made it a little more energy efficient.
“That has held us since 1997 until the end of 2010 when we started discussing where we need to go and what we need to do,” she added.
Lipes explained that part of the strategic planning and evaluation for the hospital’s future centered on whether the current hospital campus could accommodate its future needs.
“We had to do a lot of due diligence to look at what it would take to buy land and build a hospital off of this site versus could this accommodate what we need,” she explained.
Lipes said hospital administration determined that it would take approximately $35 million – plus land acquisition – to move away from the current hospital campus and construct an entirely new facility.
“We didn’t think that was feasible,” Lipes said. “So then we stepped back and we said, ‘What do we need to serve our patients and our community?’ ”
Lipes said the hospital has experienced an increased use in emergency room services by chronically ill patients and by uninsured patients. Along with the utilization of the emergency room goes the utilization of radiology and lab services.
“In keeping with all of that, one of the things that we think we do well is our connection with the University of Virginia and our telestroke and telemedicine,” Lipes said.
This includes reducing the time it takes to get a patient on a helicopter who requires more extensive care.
The process now involves calling a rescue squad, setting up a landing zone, bringing in a team and handing off the care to the helicopter staff. This process now takes 20-25 minutes.
“We wanted to be able to decrease the time it takes to get our patients to the helicopter,” Lipes said. “Putting the helipad at the front door of the hospital is going to decrease this process by at least 20 minutes.”
The addition of GPS equipment will also assist in helicopter transports, Lipes added.
“The helicopters then can hopefully come in a little more questionable weather,” Lipes said. “That might mean a half a dozen more flights in a year, but it might make a difference to half a dozen more patients.”
Aesthetically speaking, Troast said the entrance to the hospital will be “much more inviting.”
“The new doctors’ offices will be much nicer than what we have now,” he added.
Lipes said that the appearance of the current administration building will not be changed.
“We want to protect what our neighbors see when they come in,” she said.
Both Lipes and Troast said hospital administration will spend the remainder of 2012 completing architectural drawings and receiving proper permitting and other approvals.
“We would go into construction as soon as weather permits in 2013,” Troast said. “This is all staged such that we can continue to serve our patient population while the construction is taking place.”
Lipes said the hospital staff of 40-plus medical staff members and total employees numbering 135 have provided valuable input into this planning stage.
In the last few weeks, all department managers and medical staff have signed off on the final drawings.
“We think that is important, because they are the ones on the ground taking care of the patients,” Lipes said.
Hospice Design with architect Tom Mullinax has assisted hospital administration with planning for the project.
Neilsen Construction of Harrisonburg has been awarded the pre-construction bid.
“We’re very excited about the future. We’ve tried to think through with the staff what we need for the future,” Lipes said. “It’s exciting.”
