LOCK HAVEN - Patients in Lock Haven Hospital's Intensive Care Unit and ICU staff will step into the future together when the doors of the medical facility's brand-new unit swing open tomorrow.
Built to serve area residents, not just for today but 10 years down the road, the $3.2 million unit is bright, airy and much larger than the current ICU which offers somewhat spartan patient rooms and little space for either employees or equipment.
Staff and patients will leave that unit behind and move to their new second-floor unit starting Friday.
Staff members and volunteers have toured it, and Wednesday an informal ribbon-cutting celebrated it, with Chief of Medical Staff Dr. Raj Patel and David Gundy, chairman of the hospital's board, wielding the ceremonial scissors.
What was originally a wing of Extended Care that connected to the second floor of the hospital is now a unit all on its own. No longer a pass-through, the ICU has locked entry doors. Family members and other visitors gain admittance when they press a button, look into the small camera on the wall above it and wait to be buzzed through by the central nurses' station. (Staff members can use the microchips in their ID cards for quick, seamless access.)
The doors at the unit's other end lead to Extended Care but will be used only in emergencies when the building's fire system unlocks them.
The new unit, built in eight months, consists of six private critical-care rooms and four private telemetry rooms to be used for cardiac care.
All of the new rooms have cardiac monitors with visual displays above the patient's bed and at the central nurses' station. In addition, the wall that faces the station is made almost entirely of glass so the staff can see the patient easily.
Each of the six main rooms also has exterior windows and a toilet area with a curtain that can be drawn for privacy. The four telemetry rooms may not have a window but do feature actual bathrooms with showers.
"After three or four days, usually the patient's biggest concern is, 'When can I get a shower?'" the hospital's Nursing Home Administrator Thomas Foster said while showing Senior Circle members around the unit.
Some of the most amazing features of the new ICU not only make the patients more comfortable, but also help the nursing staff and physicians do their work well.
The cardiac monitors include a transportable device with a memory that goes with the patient to radiology or any other section of the facility.
The patient can control the flat-screen TV, room lights and heat or cooling, all from the bed.
The beds themselves cost about $10,000 apiece and feature gel mattresses to prevent pressure ulcers.
The test, Foster said, was to throw a set of keys on the bed, add the mattress and then lie on top. The keys couldn't be felt at all through the winning mattress, he said.
Each room has a recliner so patients may get out of bed and sit up, even if they must keep their feet elevated.
In fact, the bed itself can be transformed into a chair shape. It also can be made longer or shorter, depending on the size of the patient, and raised or lowered for easier access.
The beds offer hands-free controls for the staff, an alarm that goes off if the brake has not been reset and an alarm for different degrees of mobility that goes off if the patient gets up when he should not.
The built-in scales tell the nurse or physician what the patient weighs, an important detail when giving medications, without having to disturb him, as Acute Care Director Brenda Confer explained.
Medications themselves are stored in a room by the nurses' station that features a secured automated dispensing system.
Even the call bell system is high-tech. Connected to a database, it records how often a patient pushes the bell, plus how quickly it was answered. And once a staff member enters the room and pushes the appropriate button, the information goes to the nurses' station so those working centrally can keep track of others on duty.
One of the new patient rooms is a negative-pressure room that maintains a constant flow of air from the hallway in and up to the roof through a special ventilation system. The room is designed for patients with a highly contagious disease, Foster said, which could include a "super bug."
People with sensitive ears and sinuses can tell the difference in the air flow immediately, he said.
In fact, standing in any of these rooms by the dream bed, flanked by its two head walls (power columns) that run floor to ceiling, a visitor might expect to turn around and catch a glimpse of actor Hugh Laurie scowling and muttering about some unpronounceable complication that will turn out just fine by the next commercial.
"The timely upgrade of the intensive care unit enables us to continue to improve the health-care delivery in Clinton County and demonstrates our commitment to provide quality care, right here," Cindy Segar-Miller, CEO of Lock Haven Hospital, said.
The renovation of the 6,100-square-foot wing also created a good deal of storage space, something often lacking in most older facilities, Foster said. The staff lounge has a conference table for trainings and a bathroom that meets ADA guidelines. The unit also includes a consultation room for doctors to meet with family members.
Because the unit connects directly to the second-floor medical-surgical wing, the waiting room at the elevator serves both. In fact, this wing was chosen so ICU patients will be on the same floor as regular hospital rooms and the surgical suite while still in an isolated setting.
"An ICU should be somewhat cordoned off because it serves the sickest patients," Foster said.
He's taken an active role in the construction phase, meeting daily with the contractors to make sure the project was on time and on budget.
BBLM Architects designed the unit and Zartman Construction Inc. of Northumberland was the general contractor.
Planning began in 2005, Foster said. ICU staff members lent their frontline perspective and Chief Nursing Officer Carol Barner has overseen patient-care aspects of the construction.
Once started, the renovations ran into no major hitches, Foster said.
The hospital's owner, Community Health Systems, has spent between $18 and $20 million on the physical plant alone, he said.
"CHS has invested and is continuing to invest in this facility and in Clinton County," he said. "We see Lock Haven as a viable, growing community."
The facility was built in 1959, before ADA standards and before portable, bedside testing units were in use.
"Just in our lifetime, the entire world of medicine has changed," he noted.
A master plan for the building is now being written, he said.
Future projects could include changing the main entrance area to make outpatient services more accessible, Mitch Christensen, business development director, reported.
And, it would be nice to to renovate the med-surg unit and the operating rooms, Foster added. But, major changes are expensive because the units must meet the latest codes when completed.
With the county's population aging, more people will need more medical care in the coming decade, Foster predicted.
"The new ICU lends itself to delivering high quality of care," he said. "We could have spent less money on the beds, for instance, but we want to ensure not only the best patient care but also the best place to work in patient care."
The project changed over its four-year process, he said, but the results have been well worth the journey.
"I think it's something the community will embrace," he said.
"We have a new ICU... a better 'product' and a better service," Patel said.
"Our goal is to send a message to the community that we also have guidelines on how to take care of congestive heart failure, heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia. We implement and follow the guidelines very strictly at this hospital," he said. "We have an internal review process to make sure every physician follows the guidelines."
Those guidelines also are reviewed regularly for potential improvements, the chief of staff said.
"My goal is to work with all physicians and administrators to bring up our quality of care to such a level that patients in our community don't have to travel far away from here," he added. "We want to let people in Clinton County know we are here to take care of them, that most of the common medical problems can be dealt with here."
"This is going to be a huge improvement for everybody," Barner said. "Now we can practice great medicine in a beautiful place."
