Photo by Melissa Lewis

AnMed Renovation Plans

Demolition is expected to start this week in an extreme makeover at AnMed Health Medical Center.

Several buildings are being removed as part of a four-year, $74 million renovation at the 461-bed hospital on Fant Street. The work is being done in stages and will cause minor inconveniences, hospital officials said.

Hospital staff said the construction is small price to pay for the long-term improvements coming to patients’ care.

The AnMed Health Learning Center, one of the first buildings to be torn down, will be replaced by a 70-space parking lot for the hospital’s new minor care center. The facility will offer medical care to patients with minor illnesses who otherwise would have come to the emergency room.

The emergency room is a triage center, so patients with the most critical injuries are treated first, said Tina Jury, AnMed’s vice president for Patient Care Services. Separating patients with minor ailments from those with serious injuries and creating a larger facility specifically for minor care should decrease the amount of time those patients wait for treatment.

“The whole goal is to get the right patients the right care at the right time,” Ms. Jury said.

The minor care center is scheduled to open next week inside the former AnMed Health Family Medicine Center at the corner of Calhoun and Fant Streets. The center will still operate on a triage system, and the hospital is planning marketing initiatives to teach patients what is considered a minor injury, Ms. Jury said.

The blood center and outpatient laboratory will join the minor care in the former family medicine center in early 2008. A helicopter pad will be built adjacent to the emergency department parking lot and should be complete by spring 2008.

Vacant houses on Sherard Street, Woodrow Circle and Calhoun Street will be removed in the next five weeks to make room for 200 additional parking spaces on the east and south sides of the hospital.

Less visible improvements coming in 2008 include updating and renovating the hospital’s operating rooms, creating an expanded neurosciences center and a dedicated heart center.

“We are very excited about all of the changes being made,” said Elaine Reimels, AnMed’s senior director of heart and vascular services.

Her staff will move into a consolidated heart care center on the first and second floors of the hospital, making the heart care services easier to find. Patients would only have to leave the first floor if they needed a more invasive procedure, Ms. Reimels said.

The renovations give medical professionals the opportunity to design the space to better suit existing needs and new technology. For example, the new space will allow the hospital to provide more privacy for catheterization patients by adding consulting rooms and consolidating the procedure and recovery rooms in one area.

A healthcare facility’s aesthetics can determine whether patients feel calm and confident, Ms. Reimels said. And both those feelings can seriously impact their recovery.

“There’s just lots good things for heart and cardiovascular care that are coming out of this renovation,” she said.