MONMOUTH, Ill. — Community members in Monmouth got a sneak peek of OSF HealthCare Holy Family Medical Center's newly-constructed emergency department a few days before it officially opens to the public.
On June 4, the public was able to visit the facility and take a tour of the department four days ahead of its June 8 opening.
The $6 million project has been OSF's vision for nearly five years but couldn't officially begin until the spring of 2021.
Typically, the hospital serves an average of 20-25 patients in the emergency department each day. The new addition will allow OSF to serve up to 40 patients comfortably, according to hospital administration.
The 10,000-square-foot addition includes 10 patient rooms, a behavioral health room, a triage room, and a decontamination area near the ambulance drop-off to provide showers for those suffering from chemical exposures. The improvements also emphasize privacy and fluidity and include a new ambulance bay with its own private entrance.
Several rooms are cross-functional and feature doors on two sides of the room, with a hallway on either side, allowing medical staff to wheel patients in and out with maximum efficiency and confidentiality depending on how busy the ER is.
It's five times the size of the center's current emergency department, which will be phased out upon the expansion's opening.
"This expanded space allows us the room to bring in that transformational, really progressive care to our patients with the updated equipment," said Lisa DeKezel, president of OSF's hospitals in Monmouth and Galesburg. "It gives us the space we need to provide the care we want to deliver for our communities."
She said bringing state-of-the-art equipment and services to a rural community was top-of-mind for the project's organizers.
"We are committed to long-term, progressive, sustainable health care here in Monmouth, Warren, and Henderson Counties and the surrounding area, and really wanted to ensure that what we put our time, thought and investment into was going to be supported well into the future," DeKezel said. "This is truly transformational for our rural communities who deserve high-quality health care at their fingertips in the community they know and love."
One wall in the new emergency department features a timeline of the hospital's existence, complete with pictures, maps, and quotes. It's a fitting touch for a medical center that's benefited so greatly from its community, said DeKezel.
"We could not have done this expansion without the commitment of our community and our donors," DeKezel said. "The heart of the community is in this project and in this department so we cannot say thank you enough."