WellStar's board of directors had allocated $100 million to replace the current
WellStar. Paulding Hospital with a new facility on property at Bill Carruth Parkway
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New WellStar Hospital WellStar’s board of directors had allocated $100 million to replace the current WellStar Paulding Hospital with a new facility on property at Bill Carruth Parkway and U.S. 278 but now has added $39.5 million more to expand its efforts to serve the community’s needs better. The new, 265,000-square-foot hospital will have four floors, plus a basement, with a capacity of 112 beds. The first 56 beds on the first and second floors will be ready in 2014, with the third and fourth floors to be finished as needed at an estimated cost of about $7 million each. The hospital will have 30 adult emergency exam rooms, 10 pediatric emergency exam rooms, six or more surgery suites, decentralized nursing stations serving six rooms each so nurses spend less time walking and more time with patients, and digital systems as the hospital transitions to “paper-lite.” It will not have a birthing center; WellStar’s Kennestone, Cobb and Douglas hospitals have those, and Cobb and Kennestone have neonatal critical care units. At 112-bed build-out, the hospital could provide more than 300 new jobs. With 56 beds in the first year, an estimated $10 million in around 200 additional salaries will boost the local economy. The second medical office building will be slightly larger than the first at 80,000 square feet, providing an estimated 200-plus new jobs. It will have a retail pharmacy and enhanced specialty service lines that include expanded women’s imaging and therapeutic services, ENT care for pediatric, sleep and cancer patients, cardiac diagnostics and treatment and a cancer center with a full line of physician, diagnostic, treatment, education and support services. Most WellStar Paulding Hospital patients are outpatients, and parking will continue to be in front of the medical office buildings. The $139.5 million will include $110 million for the hospital, $25 million for the second medical office building, $4.5 million for land and $400,000 for the sleep lab. WellStar has already invested $5 million for the Imaging Center and $5.2 million for the Radiation Therapy facility. Estimating 61,261 Paulding County households in 2015, WellStar will have invested $2,401 per household.
Design, processes The hospital replacement project is somewhat unique through its affiliation with The Center for Health Design in San Francisco, which uses evidence-based designs such as ensuring that rooms and offices have sunlight, which has proven to improve safety, quality and patient satisfaction, said Haney. Evidence-based design has proven “patients heal faster with sunlight and employees are more alert,” Haney said. The facility also will be one of 43 Pebble Project hospitals nationally and the first in Georgia committed to doing research to improve healthcare. The hospital currently participates in a formal research project on medication distribution through decentralized nursing stations. The new hospital will also have LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) Silver status, and WellStar Paulding already is focusing on processes to eliminate waste through the Lean program. The current emergency room now has a green zone to get patients with minor health issues such as sore throats out quickly, while patients with chest or abdominal pains are treated in the full emergency room. “We started that last year to deal with the volume of growth,” said Haney, and the processes will transfer to the new hospital. Times-Georgian.com
