caption:

 

 

New Room

Marie Gauvin, project manager, shows off one of the new private patient rooms in the now-open first phase of the Day Kimball Emergency Department. Linda Lemmon photo.

 

 

 

By Linda Lemmon

Town Crier Editor

PUTNAM --- The Department of Public Health April 21 approved the first section of the Day Kimball Hospital's new Emergency Department. The department will be open April 23 in the new space.

Day Kimball Healthcare officials celebrated the finish of the first section last week. Phase One of the construction includes a new ambulance entrance, one of two nurses stations, the resuscitation room with two beds and eight private patient rooms. According to Marie Gauvin, project manager, 2015 will see the second phase open, adding eight more exam rooms. Reconfiguring walls and halls will merge the current emergency department space with the new space.  The entire project is 23,066 square feet and renovation of the current space.  Heathcare officials said that the state-of-the-art Emergency Department will allow registration at patient's bedsides to accelerate care and make the ED process more efficient. They said the establishment of all-private treatment rooms "perhaps the most significant improvement." It will offer privacy, confidentiality and dignity for individuals. The number of patient rooms will double. 

Gauvin said that several new technologies will allow faster, better care. A "point of care" testing area will allow 10 minutes for cardiac blood testing rather than 45 minutes. Pregnancy tests that must be performed before a woman is x-rayed, can be done very quickly. Some tests, she said, can be done in three minutes rather than 45.

Decontamination is now possible. In addition a separate covered ambulance entrance has been constructed that will be equipped to easily convert to a hazardous decontamination zone or to receive mass casualties.

Gauvin said all patient service rooms now have all the equipment they need in them. No "carts" with equipment will have to be wheeled from one room to another. In addition, she said that because the population is, unfortunately, getting larger, the ER now has a bariatrics room with a lift that can handle up to 700 pounds and a scale that can also weigh more overweight people.