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Boscobel Area Health Care opens addition on May 28

The much awaited and talked about expansion will open its doors to patients May 28th. "This has been a very long process, from planning to fundraising to constructing. It feels good to finally realize the rewards of those efforts," said Quality Services Director Sally Rosemeyer.

Boscobel Area Health Care began planning for the expansion more than five years ago, when their official status as a "Critical Access Hospital" allowed a large enough financial margin to consider rebuilding the emergency room.

"We knew we needed something different. Our old ER was simply too small," said Rosemeyer. The emergency room was part of the original 1952 building project, and as such could not accommodate modern needs. Planning began, and designs were drafted for a new emergency room.

The new emergency center will include a large trauma area, additional exam rooms, centralized nurses' station, a new helipad, a double ambulance garage, and indoor decontamination unit. The new nurses' station is centralized to allow access to the trauma area, exam rooms, medication room, walk-in care clinics, and specialist center.

"It was a very involved process. A team visited other hospitals around the state, getting ideas and talking to emergency room staff at different hospitals. We learned a lot, and used that information in the design process," said Emergency Room Nurse Manager Amy Franklin.

The community showed overwhelming support of the project, donating over $1 million to the project.

During the design process, the plans grew beyond a new emergency room. "The new addition will serve as our main entrance, registration, and waiting area for all hospital services," Franklin said. Additional patient parking, ground level entry to the hospital, and more private registration areas will make the new entrance more patient and visitor friendly.

Walk-In Care will also be in the new addition. Currently, walk-in care clinic utilizes Bluff Street Clinic during non-clinic hours. In May, Walk-In will move to the new addition, where it will utilize four new exam rooms and a triage room. "We will now be able to see patients in a triage area, and determine if they need emergency or walk-in care services, based on clinical guidelines for these services," explained Franklin.

The new addition will feature four exam rooms for specialty physicians who practice in Boscobel. Specialists who currently travel to Boscobel include three general surgeons, two orthopedic surgeons, a cardiologist, podiatrist, dermatologist, and urologist. "Having additional space allocated as a specialist center will allow us to recruit additional physician specialists to practice here," said Franklin.

More than 700 people toured the new addition in April during a two-day open house.