[robk1982]

http://blog.mlive.com/get-healthy-in...ter_moves_fo.h

Hurley Medical Center moves forward with planned emergency room expansion
Posted by Elizabeth Shaw | THE FLINT JOURNAL June 23, 2009 16:00PM

FLINT, Michigan -- Genesee County's busiest emergency room plans to double in size by 2011.

Hurley Medical Center's Board of Directors voted Monday night to approve the basic schematic design of a $30-million expansion for the area's only Level 1 Trauma Center.

"The goal is to build a brand-new, from-scratch emergency trauma center that bascially doubles the size of the facility we have right now," said Hurley CEO Patrick Wardell. "We'll use the one we have now until we build the new one, then we'll turn the lights off and move over."

The expansion has been in the works for years, with an ER created to accommodate 55,000 patients a year that routinely handles nearly 80,000 patients a year, including some of the most seriously injured accident victims in the region.

The old ER will be converted to expand the hospital's outpatient services as well as a clinical unit for cases where patients can be cared for and observed for 24 hours without actual hospital admission.

The new ER would take over the entire main floor of the east wing, which is the long corridor off the parking garage, then extend out another 25,000 square feet toward Fifth Avenue for a total of 50,000 square feet.

The main lobby would also be relocated to face Fifth Avenue.

"What is now the front of the building essentially becomes the back of the building where we focus all the ambulance traffic," said Wardell. "Besides improved traffic flow, it embraces the revitalized downtown by connecting us more to Fifth Avenue and downtown."

The project would be financed through loans, not through a countywide operating millage on the August ballot.

The only way the millage plays a role is in improving the hospital's overall financial picture so that it could borrow money at a lower interest rate.

"Right now the rates we'd have to pay are affordable but very dear and expensive, about nine percent, which is tax-exempt," said Wardell. "If we had the financial stability of the millage, that would increase the hospital's credit worthiness so it would only cost us 5 percent. That's $2.4 million less a year in financing costs."

The hospital plans to work with local contractors and labor for the $19-million construction phase, as an economic multiplier for the area.

More detailed plans for the state's Certificate of Need process won't be approved until mid-August or September, when health care providers hope to learn the outcome of more proposed reductions in reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare.

"The reason we didn't ask the board to approve the whole project at once was because so much is happening at the state and federal level that won't be clear until then," said Wardell. "The board could conceivably still back away from this in a month and a half if dramatic reductions in reimbursement become a reality."

There was talk about tearing down the oldest part of the hospital (the north wing?) and building a new tower, but I haven't heard anything about that for a while. I guess this ER expansion will have to do for now.