By PAUL LORENZ

paul.lorenz@mcleansborotimesleader.com

McLEANSBORO — Another piece of the ongoing expansion and renovation of the hospital here is in place.

Hamilton Memorial Hospital District officials recently received approval to open a new wing of the hospital, the hospital district announced last week.

Representatives of the Illinois Department of Public Health inspected a section of the newly renovated hospital and gave approval Feb. 18 for the hospital to occupy this area, according to a news release.

“With this approval, we are able to open a number of different areas we have been anxious to occupy,” Randy Dauby, Hamilton Memorial’s chief executive officer, said.

Hamilton Memorial continues in an $18.5 million expansion and renovation project which got under way in the summer of 2008. The hospital’s new emergency room, operating room and family clinic opened this past summer; a new nursing unit in the hospital and a new kitchen and conference room at Hamilton Memorial Nursing Center opened earlier.

One improvement in the project’s current phase is just northeast of the registration area — a hallway that leads through the new patient wing and back to the nurses station.

“This is important for a couple of reasons,” Dauby said. “First, visitors, patients and staff going to the patient rooms will no longer have to walk all the way around the construction area to get to the patient rooms. I realize this has been a real inconvenience for everyone, and we are excited that visitors and others going to the patient rooms and nurses station now have direct access to these areas.

“Secondly, this gives us the ability to occupy these new patient rooms,” he said. “We now have 17 patient rooms with 23 beds available. This means the vast majority of time a patient is admitted to the hospital, they will have a comfortable private room with their own bathroom and shower. This is a tremendous step forward for patient privacy and comfort, not to mention infection-control benefits that being somewhat isolated from other patients provide.”

Also now open and occupied are the new nursing offices, located in the south wing where the old emergency room was previously located.

“As health care has evolved over the past 50 years, the requirements regarding staff education, infection control management and social services has increased dramatically,” Dauby said. “We are also required to monitor and report on the patient’s stay to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies to be sure the stay meets guidelines developed by the payers.

“In the past, we had very limited space to perform these vital tasks, and the staff performing this work was spread throughout the hospital,” he said. “With the opening of this addition, these individuals are all now centrally located near the nursing floor with easy access to the patients and the physicians.”

Another section of the hospital will be open “in the next couple of months,” Dauby said.

“The new radiology suite and pharmacy department are progressing ahead of schedule, and we are going to be ready to request an inspection from the Illinois Department of Public Health in the next 30 to 45 days,” he said. “There is still a tremendous amount of renovation and construction to complete on the new therapy, laboratory and respiratory therapy areas, but some of this work is contingent on getting the radiology department moved to its new location.”

The entire project is scheduled to be completed in “November or December,” Dauby said.

“Much of the work has had to take place in the existing hospital, and I realize it has been an inconvenience for our patients and the staff,” he said. “We are definitely nearing the final phase of the construction project, and when we are completed, I think the community will be very pleased with the layout, appearance and most importantly the care being provided at their local hospital.”