Full of Grace

St. Ann’s plans major growth of facilities and services

By Garth Bishop

Amassive expansion project for Mount Carmel St. Ann’s will further the hospital’s transition to a regional medical center – the heart of medical care in Westerville.

And at the heart of the major project: a new patient tower that will vastly expand heart care and other services.

In late June, St. Ann’s broke ground on Project GRACE (Growing Regional Advanced Centers of Excellence), a $110 million project that will increase the size of the hospital campus by 20 percent, adding 117,000 square feet to its current size of 599,000 square feet. It will also add more than 200 full-time jobs.

“Project GRACE is about healing and hope, and that’s what we do here at St. Ann’s every single day,” says hospital President Janet Meeks.

The huge expansion represents the largest-scale project in Mount Carmel’s 125-year history, and is also the largest construction project in Westerville’s history. Hospital executives are optimistic the expansion will create a destination health care facility. The 113-year-old hospital, originally started by a Catholic order of nuns as a home for unwed mothers, relocated from the downtown Columbus area in 1984.

The work is projected to be finished in October 2013.

On the third and fourth floors will be a total of 60 new hospital beds – 30 for cardiovascular patients and 30 for neurological patients. The new private rooms will be larger and more inviting than existing private rooms.

“The rooms are going to have this feeling of hospitality and home,” Meeks says.

The second floor will house electrophysiological and catheterization labs, while the ground floor will host the sterile processing department and non-invasive cardiovascular services.

The four-story patient tower is the biggest addition. It will be located adjacent to the hospital’s emergency services department – an important choice of placement, Meeks says, because when a patient comes in with a heart emergency, minutes count.

With the new patient tower will come more health care services.

Cardiovascular services will see a big expansion, including the addition of open-heart surgery, which “will be new to the Westerville area,” Meeks says. The hospital began moving in this direction in November 2009 by providing heart attack care, and since then, it has seen a huge increase in ambulance runs.

“We’re so blessed to have this great relationship with the area EMS and have earned their trust,” Meeks says.

Emergency services units can transmit electrocardiogram data directly to the hospital en route, so when the patient arrives, he or she can be taken straight to the cath labs. The general goal is for a heart patient to go from the door to stint placement in 90 minutes, but St. Ann’s average is much lower – sometimes the process takes 20 minutes or less – and the new tower will only make things faster.

An important emphasis in the heart department is on serving all cardiovascular patients’ potential needs. In many hospitals, vascular disease is treated in a different area than heart disease, which means less interplay between the two departments despite a wide variety of vascular issues, like smoking and hypertension, being common to those experiencing heart problems. St. Ann’s instead takes an interdisciplinary approach, says Martha Reigel, hospital vice president of medical affairs, addressing all possible issues.

“We will be the only hospital in central Ohio to have integrated cardiovascular services,” says Meeks.

The added space and facilities also will allow St. Ann’s to expand its cancer care services. The hospital is already the only one in central Ohio to use CyberKnife, a less time-intensive radiation therapy alternative.

Other service extensions will include neurology, maternal-fetal medicine, breast health and spine care. Orthopedics, which already draws patients from throughout Ohio and adjacent states, will be expanded, and the hospital is pursuing certification as a center for stroke treatment.

Also on the agenda are a new grand entrance, an expanded kitchen and dining area, and a parking garage.

The entrance will be oriented south toward Copeland Mill Road, with the existing entrance facing Cleveland Avenue becoming an exit.

“The main entrance today does not make a statement … that this is a destination hospital,” Meeks says.

That ambiguity will be removed, she says. Not only will signage very clearly direct incoming patients to it, it will also have inviting decorative elements – lots of natural light and natural materials, stained-glass crosses on the windows, scripture from a focal point in Matthew printed on a wall and a two-story fireplace with a stained-glass cross on it to anchor it all. The stained glass for the crosses comes from St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church. The church is replacing most of its stained glass and is donating almost all of it to St. Ann’s, giving it a good home in a place of prominence.

“A lot of their parishioners are patients here,” says Erin Stitzel, senior development officer for the hospital.

Rounding things off will be LCD screens showing testimonials on how hospital employees and volunteers have gone the extra mile to help patients.

The kitchen is as old as the Westerville hospital and needs an update, says Meeks. The new kitchen will have several distinct dining rooms and a coffee shop area, and will also provide room service.

“We do not want just another cafeteria,” she says. “We’re tripling the (size of) the space, but we don’t want to just triple what we already have; we want a true dining experience.”

Garth Bishop is editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.