FAYETTEVILLE — Washington Regional Medical Center would add tens of thousands of square feet and generators that could cool its Fayetteville hospital during outages on hot days under a proposal endorsed by the hospital’s board last week.
The hospital is in the middle of a $43 million expansion and renovation involving its operating and emergency departments. The new plan would extend the expansion, tacking on a third floor to that part of the building, roughly $30 million in costs and a few months of work, Mark Bever, hospital executive vice president, told the board.
Board members unanimously voted to begin the new phase of the medical center's expansion.
“We’ve proven if we build it, we use it,” said board member Sammy Turner, medical director for the hospital’s emergency department, to agreement from other board members.
The idea came up in February when board member Anthony Hui said the hospital’s lab services needed more room. Lab services analyze and identify infections and other health issues and are essential to many kinds of health care. Adding lab space and equipment would use about one-third of the new project’s cost, Bever said this month.
Bever’s proposal would also add several patient beds, about 10,000 square feet of empty space ready for future expansion, and two generators to power the building’s cooling system during an outage. Being able to cool the whole facility during potential outages during the hottest days of summer has always been a concern, board members agreed; without the generators, such an event might require a hospital evacuation.
The project overall would essentially tap out the main building's ability to grow, as it would then include as many floors as its structure can support, Bever said.
Financial officer Dan Eckels said the new plan would likely push the hospital’s expansion work into 2020, but with another year’s cash flow available, the hospital should be able to handle it.
The proposal comes as Washington Regional and other health systems continue to build facilities and offer new services around Northwest Arkansas. Bever said Washington Regional’s ongoing expansion and renovation is going well. Surgeons on Wednesday performed the hospital’s first cases of a new heart valve replacement procedure made possible by the changes, he said.
Mercy Northwest Arkansas began offering the same heart procedure earlier this year while it renovates and expands its Rogers medical center. That project is part of a roughly $250 million system expansion in the region and is set to finish next year.
Northwest Health is also adding clinics and its plan to build a standalone emergency department in southwest Fayetteville near Interstate 49 got Planning Commission approval this month.
Dan Holtmeyer can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @NWADanH.
Bever’s proposal would also add several patient beds, about 10,000 square feet of empty space ready for future expansion