Albemarle Hospital Keeps Resident Healthy at Home
albemarle hospital, expansion, health care, hospitals,
Albemarle Hospital, which serves more than 130,000 residents in a seven-county region in northeastern North Carolina, is currently undergoing a $44 million construction and renovation project that includes the building of a new emergency department and surgery center. The project is expected to be completed in the summer of 2009, and will house the two new expansions.
The expansion of the emergency department is in response to the growth the hospital has experienced in emergency room patient volumes over the past few years. The expanded emergency department will allow the hospital to better meet the growing emergency-care needs of the region. Patients will continue to receive excellent emergency care in a comfortable and efficient setting.
“We already have all the bells and whistles,” says Sharon Tanner, president and CEO of Albemarle Health. “But they aren’t easy to use without a little elbow space. The new emergency department will provide physicians, nurses and other caregivers with the physical space necessary to better manage the needs of our patients. I believe physical comfort is very important. People coming to hospitals are very anxious. The new emergency department will provide patients and family members with space that is comforting for them.”
The new emergency department will have 34 treatment rooms, doubling its current capacity, which is will help reduce patient waiting times. The 38,000-square-foot emergency department will also house an additional two special care rooms for psychiatric patients and victims of sexual assault.
The new surgery center is being constructed on the floor directly above the new emergency department. The center will be named after the late Dr. Zack D. Owens, a renowned local surgeon and member of Albemarle Hospital’s medical staff for four decades. A $1 million gift from the Zack D. Owens and Martha Anderson Owens Charitable Trust helped make the new center a financial possibility.
The surgery center will occupy 31,000 square feet, and will include eight new operating rooms and 14 new post-anesthesia care unit beds for a total of 30 post anesthesia care beds.
“The new surgery center will accommodate a 10 percent increase in annual surgeries performed at Albemarle Hospital,” says Tanner. “The current operating rooms were constructed between 1978 and 1990 and don’t as easily accommodate the kinds of advanced equipment used today. The new, larger operating rooms will provide our surgical team with optimum space to accommodate the technology and staff required for 21st-century surgical procedures.”
Albemarle Hospital is a full-service regional health-care facility, capable of meeting most of the inpatient and outpatient care needs of the Albemarle Region.
Story by Brandon Lowe
Photo by Ian Curcio
