Clinton Township — Henry Ford Well being System is ready to start transferring sufferers to a brand new $265 million wing of its Macomb hospital on Monday, an growth hospital officers are calling a “historic and transformative step” for the county’s well being care.
The Janet and Jim Riehl North Tower stands 5 tales tall with 225,000 sq. toes of house for 160 personal affected person rooms. The biggest growth to the hospital because it was in-built 1975 and the most important well being care funding in county historical past, Henry Ford officers say it has been within the works for 13 years and is linked to the primary Henry Ford Macomb Hospital on 19 Mile and Dalcoma Drive.
All 160 rooms within the new tower may be transformed to intensive care rooms if the demand exceeds the hospital’s present capability, mentioned Henry Ford Macomb Hospital President and CEO Barbara Rossmann. And the additions will improve the hospital’s variety of intensive care beds from 48 to 60, enhancing the employees’s means to look after critically in poor health sufferers.
“All vital care might be on this tower,” mentioned Rossmann. “As vital care wants develop as they’re within the county, we’ll have the ability to convert any room that we have to in that tower to a vital care house. … which I assume by way of the years we are going to want.”
Monday’s opening comes almost two years after Henry Ford Well being formally unveiled its growth plans for the hospital, saying the brand new tower promised to remodel its campus.
On Friday, employees ready for the approaching switch of 48 vital care beds to the brand new north tower. Remaining touches corresponding to arranging furnishings and coaching nurses on how you can use new options in personal rooms have been underway within the in any other case empty wing. The tower will present cardiovascular, thoracic, trauma, surgical and neurological intensive care to sufferers, Rossmann mentioned.
Sufferers will proceed to be moved by way of the following two weeks, by the top of which all flooring of the brand new constructing might be crammed, she mentioned.
“We now have an entire crew gathered. I imply, we have now medical employees, nursing employees, respiratory remedy employees, our fast response crew, anyone and all people. … as a result of it is a large deal to maneuver intensive care sufferers,” Rossmann mentioned.
The hospital is the primary in Macomb County to make all licensed beds out there as personal rooms. The rooms improve affected person privateness, present extra alternatives for sufferers’ households to be current, assist forestall an infection between sufferers and supply more room for workers to work, Rossmann mentioned.
“One of many challenges that we presently have is our rooms are very small, and it is very troublesome to have multiple member of the family within the room at a time,” Rossmann mentioned.
Every of the tower’s new rooms is outfitted with a roll-out sofa for relations to sleep on, together with different options corresponding to sliding toilet doorways, fall mats and chairs to maximise consolation for sufferers and utility for medical employees. The brand new personal rooms have been constructed with enter from intensive care and medical surgical procedure nurses in addition to Henry Ford Well being’s affected person household advisory council.
“We arrange a mockup room… (and) we had the employees and we additionally had our affected person household advisory council come by way of and take a look at them,” mentioned Angela Job, a nursing administrator. “Primarily based on their suggestions, we did truly transfer the wall of our toilet… reconfigured a number of the setup on the headwall of the place we will be putting the oxygen, the suction, the displays, the ventilators.”
Every of the tower’s 5 flooring additionally has rooms for sufferers with disabilities and rooms specialised for sufferers with distinctive dimension wants or people who require safe environments. Sufferers who’re in danger for harming themselves will keep in specifically designed rooms with encased televisions, non-breakable mirrors, dry-walled ceilings and particular door handles, railings and sinks designed to reduce ligature factors, Rossmann mentioned.
The hospital’s north entrance, powerhouse and loading docks have been additionally all redesigned as a part of the growth venture and Henry Ford Well being made roadway enhancements and constructed a brand new safe employees parking zone.
Greater than 30 new full-time positions have been created to employees the brand new constructing, in response to the well being system. The roles embody nursing, pharmacy, plant operations, provide chain, affected person transport, environmental companies, meals and diet companies and knowledge companies.
When the hospital’s present vital care beds are moved from the south tower to the brand new north tower, different items will take their place. The “intricate” transferring plan is anticipated to be accomplished by February 2024, Rossmann mentioned.
“We might be transferring items that aren’t transferring into the north tower, they are going to be transferring into what’s presently our ICU vital care beds,” Rossmann mentioned. “We might be additionally increasing rooms that are actually semi-private and as a substitute of getting two sufferers in these rooms, open them up so there’s one affected person.”
The unique proposal for the brand new tower and different renovations projected prices to be $318 million and included a second part for renovations within the hospital’s central tower, Rossmann mentioned. When Henry Ford Well being begins the second part the aim might be to imitate the atmosphere within the north tower, she mentioned.
“We nonetheless have that funding put aside and that might be part two,” Rossmann mentioned. “We’re ready for closing approval for that.”
Rossmann referred to as the brand new addition a “historic and transformative step” in Macomb County.
“As I take into consideration Henry Ford Well being and Macomb, we’re actually an built-in system,” Rossmann mentioned. “What we have created is the chance to boost what we have been providing into an expanded atmosphere.”
The hospital additionally bought over 200 items of artwork to show all through the brand new tower after greater than 270 Michigan-based artists submitted no less than 1,300 works for consideration in February.
