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Sparks RMC Renaissance Building Signifies System’s Rebirth
The altar call for Sparks was not religious, but rather a dawning realization by its administration over the past few years that without major changes, the 111-year-old Fort Smith hospital would no longer be financially viable or able to continue providing quality patient care. The need for change was becoming urgent. CEO Frederick “Ted” Woodrell has acknowledged that, thanks to rising fixed costs and too little revenue, the institution has been losing about $1 million each month. Ron Vigus, Sparks’ COO, said much of that is because of the changing healthcare market nationally and the inordinate numbers of uninsured patients Sparks treats. The aging facilities were another concern. The existing facility had been added onto over the past 60 years without a truly cohesive plan, former spokesperson Greg Russell told Medical News of Arkansas last year, so many closely related departments were on separate floors or opposite sides of the campus. That inefficiency contributed to other problems. Although in 2006, eight Sparks primary care physicians received recognition from the National Council on Quality Assurance for treatment of heart and stroke patients, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services listed Sparks in 2007 as one of seven hospitals in the nation not meeting the national standard for 30-day heart attack survival rates. Facing so many challenges, the health system had two options: dramatic cutbacks to decrease costs or dramatic growth to generate more revenue. Sparks chose growth. “The Renaissance Building marks not only an important milestone for Sparks, but an important milestone for Fort Smith and the surrounding region,” said Woodrell. “Bringing these services together in one location will mean a higher level of quality for patients as well as increased efficiency and decreased wait times.” Sparks is one of two hospitals in Fort Smith; the other is St. Edward Mercy Medical Center. Sparks has been planning this Renaissance project since 2004, and simultaneously has been making unprecedented investments in technology and physician recruitment. In 2007 alone, Sparks’ acquisitions included the robotic da Vinci S Surgical System; a 64-slice CT scanner; and a nuclear medicine/CT camera. Also in 2007, Sparks launched the first stage of a $17.7 million electronic medical record system. Vigus said that in the past nine months, 26 physicians have joined the staff and recruitment efforts still are going strong. “We’re expecting that number to reach the 30 to 40 range in the next six to nine months,” he noted. The new Renaissance Building and accompanying technology investments have been a major factor in Sparks’ recruitment successes, Vigus said. The two-story Renaissance Building, opened March 10, expands the campus by 142,000 square feet. The first floor houses the Boreham Emergency Center. The new center is several times the square footage of the former emergency department and increases its capacity more than 30 percent. Chief of emergency care Dr. Lee Johnson said that Sparks had 57,000 ER visits last year in a space designed to accommodate an annual volume of 25,000. The new facility is equipped to handle up to 75,000 ER visits annually. “What I’m most excited about is probably the ways the new facility will put us in touch with the patients sooner. That, and the hope of seeing an empty waiting room a lot more often,” he said. “It’s so frustrating when you have a full waiting room and you know you could be helping patients, but there’s no space to treat them.” Johnson explained that in the new center, staff can move arriving patients immediately into one of the private exam rooms. Once those fill up, four triage rooms are available for overflow patients until an exam room empties. Only when all rooms are filled will patients need to remain in the waiting room. “We don’t want people to have to sit around waiting on the paperwork when they get here,” Johnson said. “We want to just get them back there so we can start taking care of them. We can do the admissions or discharge work afterwards.” Johnson said the old ER had only one trauma bed, but the new facility has four. It also has seven cardiac rooms, 18 exam rooms, one psychiatry room and two negative-pressure isolation exam rooms. In case of a large-scale biological or chemical emergency, the entire wing can be converted to negative pressure. Whereas the old facility had a total of 23 beds in 16 ward-style rooms, all 35 emergency center beds are now private. All the rooms have increased vastly square footage and efficiency, Johnson said. Six rooms are available for Sparks Minor Medical Clinic, which operates from noon to midnight. Unlike Sparks’ former ER, the new center now has separate entrances for ambulance and patient traffic. The ground floor also showcases an all-digital medical imaging department adjacent to the center, as well as a leading-edge cardiovascular catheterization laboratory, complete with two cardiac catheterization labs and expansion capacity for two more. The cardiac area includes three Echo suites, two peripheral vascular suites, a stress echo suite and the EKG department. A central admissions and registration area greets patients and family members, featuring private areas for individuals checking into the facility. The main lobby—which for the first time has a main entrance facing a major Fort Smith thoroughfare instead of a side street—features artwork by local artists, including Dr. J.P. Bell, a professional photographer, who is also a Sparks ER physician. Upstairs is a new 24-room ICU with many upgrades and technological enhancements from the previous ICU. One of the most remarkable aspects of the new building is the attention to the layout of spaces. Johnson demonstrated in a tour of the facility how intuitive the flow is now. For example, previously, it was something of an ordeal for an ER physician to order a CT scan. Johnson said because the two departments were located so far away, first they would have to call for a transport, then the transport would have to go down a series of corridors, down an elevator and through another series of corridors to retrieve the patient from the ER and then make the long return trip up to imaging. “Now we don’t have to call for any transport, we just wheel them over a few feet,” he said. “When you’re trying to make sure your door-to-cath time is under 90 minutes, that makes a huge difference.” Vigus said all areas of the Renaissance Building have been designed to offer the best working environment for employees and care providers as well. “From the very beginning, we involved everyone in the planning—operational staff, physicians, nurses, architects, builders, everyone working together to decide what we wanted to build,” he said. “The doctors and staff had enormous input on what we needed and how it could most logically be arranged to increase productivity, efficiency and enhance quality of care and the quality of the workspace.” He said the hospital made an effort to use green construction elements where possible. These include some of the building materials, much improved heating and cooling systems, an emphasis on natural light in ICU rooms and general waiting areas and a courtyard healing garden for patients, families and employees to enjoy. The healing garden will be landscaped and constructed later this spring. The second floor was also designed with the future in mind with more than 44,000 square feet of shell space for future inpatient and outpatient surgical suites. Vigus said the hospital needs to raise up to $14 million to complete the planned surgical center, but that it made economic sense to construct the shell at the same time as the Renaissance Building. “As Sparks continues to grow and offer increased services for the region, this facility will allow space to pace that growth,” Woodrell said. The older ER and ICU space is being converted into a new sleep disorders clinic, an inpatient rehabilitation unit, and expanded physician office space. About $8 million of the Renaissance Building’s costs came from private donors, Vigus said. “We’re tremendously appreciative of the support the community has given this project,” he said, “and we plan to in return provide our area with the highest quality healthcare available. This Renaissance Building was designed to rebuild, recreate and re-energize Sparks. That’s what we’re doing.” April 2008 Tags:NoneBookmark:
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