LMH renovations for new year include surgical, patient room improvements

Lawrence Memorial Hospital

Construction started this week on renovations to Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s emergency department that LMH officials say will more efficiently manage patient flow.

Renovations include an additional external entrance to the ED that will allow outgoing and incoming patients to pass through separate entrances, Karen Shumate, chief operating officer at LMH, told the hospital’s board of trustees Wednesday. The need for efficiency, she noted, is in balance with safety concerns for ED staffers, who sometimes treat those with mental illness, among other high-risk patients.

“EDs are often a place where there’s a lot of tension and sometimes violence,” she explained.

“We’ve had a little bit of that,” added Shumate, who also said the ED would see an increased security presence in response to those concerns.

The renovations are the first of several improvements slated to take over the next few months at LMH as part of the hospital’s recently approved 2017 budget. Crews are already “moving ahead,” Shumate said Wednesday, on one of those projects: a $400,000 remodeling of the 3 North facility, which until now has operated mainly as an overflow unit for the hospital as a result of increased surgical volumes over the last few years.

The 3 North project will include a much-needed facelift, Shumate said, of 10 rooms as well as the facility’s nursing station. The renovations, LMH leaders hope, will allow for more flexibility while also helping to avoid unnecessary diversion of patients.

Also on the calendar for next year, notably, is the allocation of $2 million for the build-out of two operating rooms that now exist as shell spaces. According to an outline of the 2017 budget released last month, surgery volumes at LMH have increased by 14 percent since 2013, with a 10 percent bump in the number of surgeons using the hospital’s OR services.

Transitioning the shell spaces into fully functional operating suites, LMH officials say, will give surgeons the ability to schedule more efficiently, allowing them to see more patients. The project is slated for completion by April.