On any given afternoon, the emergency department at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC) can get pretty busy. With all of the people living in and near Wesley Chapel and choosing FHWC for their care, sometimes every emergency room (ER) bed is full and the staff has to get creative to accommodate all of the patients who need to be seen.
So, it’s a good thing that the hospital’s expansion is already well underway. In December, FHWC’s emergency department will expand from 18 rooms to 35, which is, perhaps, the most vital part of a $78-million expansion that is adding three floors and 111,993 square feet of new space to the hospital, which already is 200,000 square feet.
“This expansion is important, so that we can continue to provide excellent care for folks in our community,” says FHWC director of marketing Tracy Clouser. “We are blessed that the community continues to choose us and we are adding space to better serve those patients.”
FHWC originally opened in 2012 with a plan to expand in five years or more, but due to the need in the community, the expansion began much sooner than initially anticipated. Because the hospital was designed to be expanded, construction of the new space – which started last August – has moved quickly.
The hospital includes three wings, referred to as the North, Center, and South wings. The current expansion adds three stories to the Center Wing and adds a three-story “connector wing,” called the “Southeast Connector,” between the Center and South wings.
In the Center Wing, patient rooms are being constructed on the fifth and sixth floors, while the fourth floor will remain a “shell” for future expansion. Clouser explains that the plan was to open two floors and keep one for future expansion, so the decision was made to leave the fourth floor shelled to minimize the disturbance to hospital patients on Floors 1-3 during construction.
In addition to new emergency and patient rooms, the expansion allows FHWC to add more doctors, especially in orthopaedics, providing more physician choices and more procedures available to people in the community. Also, when the expansion is complete, the hospital will have a new gym for in-patient rehab, so patients will no longer have to do rehab in their rooms or in the hospital’s hallways. Additional observation rooms will be opened for both pre- and post-op patients. Other changes include the operating room for women who have to undergo a C-section being moved up one floor, so that patients no longer need to be transferred by elevator to the mother/ baby unit.
The hospital’s central energy plant also is being expanded to accommodate FHWC’s new footprint. Clouser explains that if there is a power outage, all medical essentials plugged into the hospital’s red plugs will come back online immediately. Non-essentials, such as computers, will come back on within seven minutes.
A Work In Progress
Every day, about 200 people are working on FHWC’s expansion. On the day the Neighborhood News toured the construction areas, crews were putting in HVAC ductwork and starting drywall in the three-story addition to the Center Wing. Pre-cast concrete panels were being raised by a crane – weighing anywhere from 12,000-30,000 pounds (or 6-15 tons!; right photo on previous pg.) – and were put in place to form the new outside walls of the building.
The expansion construction will be completed in October or November of this year. The building will open in December, once inspections by Pasco County and hospital authorities have been completed.
Renovations, Too
As part of the construction, more than 10,000 square feet of the hospital’s existing space is being renovated. One renovation that’s already complete is the new heart catheterization lab (photo, right), which includes accommodations requested by cardiologists who specialize in electrophysiology, which is the study of the heart’s electrical system.
Some of the innovations in the heart “cath” lab include a “tilt and cradle table,” allowing doctors to move the patient for scans or procedures without having to prop them up with towels, as they would on a table that doesn’t tilt. Everything in the lab is on booms, so that all of the equipment can be moved easily, in whatever configuration the doctors need it. And, a 55-inch flat screen TV allows doctors to see any of six views, including a patient’s CT scans.
A Healing Place
“The original hospital design was very intentionally created to be a healing environment,” says Clouser. “We have lots of natural light and open space, with inviting colors, artwork that depicts scenes of nature, and lots of plants and trees visible from both patient rooms and waiting rooms.”
Some of the plants and trees are growing in FHWC’s two healing gardens, located in the hospital’s courtyards, although one is currently used for construction and will re-open when the renovations have been completed.
Clouser explains that FHWC’s healing environment will be continued throughout the new construction, too. Just like in the current hospital, many details that may not be apparent to visitors have been intentionally done to protect patients.
“For example, the building’s sprinkler heads are built into the ceiling so they don’t collect dust,” says Clouser. “In our intensive care unit and emergency department, the blinds are inside the glass so they don’t collect dust.”
She also says that the hospital has two elevator systems so that visitors don’t share elevators with patients. “This is both for patient privacy and to protect patients from germs.”
FHWC is located at 2600 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. in Wesley Chapel. To learn more about the hospital, visit FloridaHospital.com/Wesley-Chapel or call 929-5000.
