The HSHS St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital in Effingham announced a new $14 million Ambulatory Care Center expansion project that would relocate some of the hospital's outpatient services as well creating office space for physicians.
President and CEO of St. Anthony's Theresa Rutherford said services that would be affected by the expansion would include: Laboratory Specimen Collection, Convenient Care, X-ray and CT, Open MRI, Women's Wellness Center and Physician Office Space. The expansion project will be connected to the current building.
There are less and less patients that are being hospitalized and more patients are being treated at clinics and other outpatient facilities. Rutherford wants to modernize the health care offered at St. Anthony's to keep up with the ever changing health care system.
"The project will relocate the services into one centralized location to better serve patients," said Jody Puckett executive director of patient experience and support services.
Currently outpatient facilities are located within blocks of each other, but Puckett hopes the relocation of the facilities will be more convenient for patients.
While the project is still in the planning phase, the hospital has partnered with Agracel who will be the developers on the project. Agracel is an industrial development company based in Effingham, and will be the one footing the $14 million bill for the new expansion.
Once the project is completed, the hospital will lease the office space from Agracel.
By partnering with Agracel, Puckett said the hospital can better use their limited capital to better serve the patients in other areas.
Before the hospital can begin their project, they must first receive approval from the state of Illinois. The hospital is scheduled to see if they have been approved for a Certificate of Need, which will green light the project, from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services board on March 10.
Certificates of Need are awarded based on the scale of the project and are often given for outpatient services projects.
Construction on the new facility could begin later this year providing there be a break in the winter weather and approval from the state.
The hospital hopes to be using the new expansion as soon as 2016.
Puckett says no new programs will be added to the hospitals, just the relocating of several outpatient services, including the most recent addition of the convenient care center.