Hospital gets project OK
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 9, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne Memorial Hospital has received approval from the state Department of Health and Human Services to proceed with a $25 million operating room replacement project.
The hospital earlier awarded the approximately $2 million construction contract to T.A. Loving Co.
The anticipated completion date is late 2017.
The hospital received initial "conditional approval" on its certificate of need request for the project in November. At that time hospital President Bill Paugh said the conditions placed on the certificate of need were not "extraordinary."
Basically, the state was asking if the hospital would play by the rules, he said.
During Tuesday morning's hospital board meeting, Paugh said he had responded to those conditions and announced that the conditional aspect of the certificate of need had been removed.
"Our response basically allowed us a clean certificate of need and now the project will move on to buildings and grounds and the finance committee as we move forward," he said.
"That means we can build the surgical suite," board Chairman Jim Parker said. "Plans have been drawn up. You had to do all of that to get the CON. We are not starting with development. We are starting with construction (by going to the buildings and grounds committee)."
The hospital filed the request for the certificate of need with DHHS in June for the project that includes renovation of 50,000 square feet of existing hospital space and construction of an additional 40,000 square feet.
State law prohibits health care providers from "acquiring, replacing or adding to their facilities and equipment, except in specified circumstances" without prior DHHS approval.
The intent of the certificate of need is to restrict "unnecessary increases in health care costs and limits unnecessary health services and facilities based on geographic, demographic and economic considerations."
Paugh and Dr. Ben Eskra, medical staff president, were the only speakers during a state-required public hearing on the certificate of need held in August.
The two said the project would enable the hospital to continue to provide and to support "exceptional" patient care both now and in the future.
The project will address space issues and update and replace the operating rooms that were originally built when the hospital opened in 1970.
Also driving the project is an increase in volume in the hospital's endoscopy suite.
The problem is that the suite is separated from the rest of the surgical suite. Making the units contiguous will better enable the hospital to share staff, including anesthesia staffing, Paugh said at the hearing.
Because of the separation, staff has to move portable radiography equipment from room to room. The proposed changes will allow the hospital to use fixed radiography equipment in those rooms.