The construction for the new St. Mary's Health Center is ahead of schedule and will be opening in less than 95 days, officials said.
"We are definitely ahead of schedule," said Brent VanConia, president of St. Mary's Health Center. "We were originally scheduled to open in June of 2015. The team had great weather in 2012, that allowed them to get ahead of schedule. So we are going to be months ahead of schedule when we open on Nov. 16, 2014."
The new opening day is now scheduled for Mother Odelia Day, which is a day to honor the founder of the St. Mary's Healthcare System, VanConia said. On Aug. 8, the hospital announced their new opening day via a Facebook post and picture.
"It is going to a great facility for Jefferson City and the surrounding areas," said Dr. Stephen Stewart, regional vice president for medical affairs for Sisters of St. Mary's (SSM) Health in Mid-Missouri. "It is state of the art, and we want everybody in our staff to be excited, and the public to be excited, too."
The construction crews are finishing up some odds and ends with the project and have turned the building over to hospital staff to set up the rooms and equipment, Stewart said. He explained that the new facility will be more efficient and able to better practice evidence-based medicine treatments.
Evidence-based medicine means the physicians will be able to take the best practices from around the country that are based on literature, studies and evidence that support better patient results. The new hospital will be able to better implement this system thanks to updates in technology that include a paperless system complete with computers in every room to track patient's health. This will also allow physicians to evaluate their processes more quickly and see if they are living up to national standards and benchmarks, Stewart said.
An example of how the hospital will be more efficient would be its plans to control foot traffic in the building. The building will have separate paths to multiple areas; one for the public and families of the patients, and the other will be for physicians, nurses and transporting patients.
Each room in the hospital is set to be the same as the rest and private for individual patients, except for behavioral health and psychiatric care patients, who will have two beds per room. There is enough room for potentially 178 beds, which is more space than the older building, Stewart said.
There will also be eight new operating rooms, two new CATH labs for heart catheterization, and the emergency department will have 28 patient bays that will allow staff to do bedside registration, which will in turn provide a smoother transition from the waiting room to getting treatment.
As for the old building, the hospital officials were going to donate the complex to the state so Lincoln University and the State Technical College of Missouri, Linn, could take over a part of it for nursing and medical-related educational programs.
However, Gov. Jay Nixon in June vetoed the funds needed to renovate the facility, and the administration stopped negotiating with St. Mary's over the terms of the donation.
So, now officials are waiting the outcome of the Sept. 10 veto session, to see if the veto remains and - if that veto is overridden - if the Nixon administration will resume the contract negotiations.
The hospital's real estate agents from the Sansone Group still are looking for potential buyers, since the deal with the state is not for certain, VanConia said.
"It is not about the bricks and mortar," VanConia said about the new facility. "It is about creating a new home for exceptional patient care and improving on our already high standards for patient quality, safety and experience."