Northwestern Medical Center is planning a roughly $8 million project to renovate and expand its emergency department, which hospital officials say would allow more patients to be treated at once and make the facility safer.
The St. Albans City Development Review Board discussed a site plan for the project at its meeting Wednesday night but did not decide whether to approve it. The board is required to make a decision within 45 days, though will likely do so sooner.
Northwestern Medical Center’s emergency room sees more than 25,000 patients a year, according to the hospital’s website.
The hospital’s plans call for a 2,000-square-foot expansion of its main campus on Fairfield Street in St. Albans. New construction would be on the north side of the existing emergency department wing.
The number of exam and treatment beds in the emergency department would increase from 13 to 18, and an additional safe holding room would be created.
Safe holding rooms help the hospital treat patients who are experiencing severe mental health issues or thoughts of suicide.
In the center of the emergency department, the existing curtained bays would be turned into private treatment rooms. The plan also calls for two airborne infectious isolation rooms to be built.
The new layout would improve staff safety, hospital officials have said, by moving registration personnel and the security station inside the emergency department’s secure perimeter.
The plan does not call for additional inpatient beds.
Tyson Moulton, the hospital’s director of facilities, said Wednesday night that the emergency department has not been renovated for several decades.
“The emergency department — if any of you have ever visited — has seen better days,” he said. “Currently, it does not meet the community’s needs.”
Development review board members pressed Moulton on some local residents’ concerns about noise emanating from the hospital’s rooftop mechanical systems.
The new plans call for a 13,000-cubic-foot-per-minute air handler to be installed on the roof of the emergency department. Moulton said a barrier would be placed around the air handler and that it’s smaller than several existing units that have not generated noise complaints.
Overall, he said he’s confident the new unit would not produce sound that exceeds the noise limits in city ordinances.
