Taking a look at the concept floorplan

So if you read Wednesday's blog, you got a preview of the conceptual exterior design for the combined campus.  Over the next couple weeks, I'd like to take you for a quick trip inside each portion of the possible campus design, starting with the section outlined below.

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In Wold's conceptual design, this is where you'll find the Emergency and Acute Care wings, as well as the expanded laboratory and imaging departments.  For blogging purposes, it's probably a better read when broken down further into those three sections, so let's start with Emergency, which can be found in the reddish tones.

Going back to the exterior conceptual, you'll see that there will be a drive-thru canopy to keep emergency patients and EMT's out of the elements.   From that covered entrance, patients will enter to see Support areas on the left and right.  Now would be a good time to explain these areas, as they appear throughout the concept designs.

These dedicated spots labeled 'Support' are merely placeholders, as Wold's Josh Ripplinger explained during the Feasibility Update presentation.  When design gets past the concept phase, those support areas will be fleshed out to include offices, restrooms, storage, etc...  Everything required to serve that wing, in addition to the dedicated rooms, will fall into the support areas.  And again, this is a conceptual design, so some or all of these labels are fluid at the moment, so please don't fall in love with the potential layout just yet.

As you walk by the support areas towards the central Nurses Station, you'll see a Trauma room on the left and a pair of Treatment rooms on the right.  The Trauma room will function like WMC's current ER, flexing to fit two patients if necessary.  The main difference is that those patients who do not qualify as trauma patients, those just needing quick monitoring or treatment, can be directed to one of two private Treatment rooms.  This layout would easily accommodate up to four patients will little flexing, whereas three patients are a tough fit given the current ER layout.  Those Treatment rooms could also be flexed for other out-patient uses, such as infusion.  All of this flexing keeps the square footage and price down.

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You can tell from the conceptual that this was designed from the Nurses Station out.  Lines of sight down all patient hallways, including the Long Term Care wing to the north, are shown with the red arrows.  This maximizes effectiveness of WMC's current staffing model to better serve all patients.

One room that is not pictured yet is a dedicated EMT room.  There will definitely be a room for our EMT crew in the building, Wold and SEARHC have assured us of that.  Where it'll be located is still up in the air.  Perhaps somewhere in one of the support areas in the image above, or in a support space adjacent to the Nurses Station, which would allow for successful hand-off of the patient and charting.  Wherever it ends up, it was made clear to Wold that Wrangell really values our EMT's and they should have their own spot in the hospital to better serve us, and Wold listened.

So there's the first look at the Emergency wing conceptual floorplan.  It's nowhere near a finished product, but you can see that Wold has done the legwork to give us more dedicated areas with flex capabilities, nurses within close proximity of the patients, and dedicated room for our EMT's.  In the next blog entry, we'll zoom in on the Acute Care wing.  Thanks for reading.  ​

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