Salem Hospital Will Rival Oregon's Finest Facilities (VIDEO)

"We have better throughput, which means patients don’t have to wait as long, which is important." - Salem Hospital's Pam Cortez

Salem Hospital renderings show what 7-story will look like after completion

(SALEM) - Patience is a virtue and patients are the business at Salem Hospital. While improvements have been a constant part of this half a century-old medical facility, nobody in Oregon's capitol city has ever seen anything the likes of this.

The place is going through a major reconstruction and after completion, will stand among the most technically sophisticated and advanced hospitals in the state.

Salem Hospital has had to purchase land, level old buildings, and prepare everything from the ground up for the construction of the new seven-story building that will be known as the patient-care tower.

The hospital’s Pam Cortez says the new building will take many things into account that make the patient’s stay better while allowing the staff to function at a higher level.

“There is a lot of evidence about how to design a building, both for the caregivers that work in the building, the patients who are here and their families. And one of the things is way finding, and by building all of the tower floors the same way, if the patient moves, the family can find them. They know where the waiting areas are, we built in large community waiting spaces and smaller spaces where they can pull in and find a physician if they need to.”

She says the new seven-story tower will be amazing, and patients will see not only a gain in waiting room size, but also in room size, and effectiveness.

“We have four new floors with 30 beds each, and each of the rooms are set up to be very large. There is an area that then allows patients to be with family and spend time, and they’re out of the way of the caregivers and it gives the caregivers plenty of room for their equipment and technology so that both of those can help in the healing process with patients.”

And the path toward building that new hospital means a lot of ongoing construction work. Meeting this kind of goal involves changing traffic patterns; different parking areas on the hospital campus, and hospital officials say that in spite of the relative hassle, the public is weathering the storm with a lot of understanding. Pam Cortez says the end result will be visually stimulating as well as effective.

“As you’ve seen on our campus we have some older buildings and some newer buildings and certainly, patients see those and you’re drawn to a building that is both physically attractive and functional. We want to make that balance because the function is the most important but we certainly want to be aesthetically pleasing.”

As builders prepare the area for the big push, a new electric crane has been installed that will do the heavy work as the new tower begins it’s ascent. The crane is currently 167 feet high, and in a month or two, they say it will be raised to 242 feet, with a 274-foot long jib and a 90-foot counter jib to balance the heavy loads. The project will reestablish the hospital’s departments, and reduce the amount of time a person waits for care, according to Cortez.

“I work in the third to seventh floor. We’re replacing our surgical services areas and then the Intensive Care/Progressive Care. The lower floor is a new emergency department for us, our current emergency department is the busiest in the state of Oregon, so by having this one there is better access for patients. It is larger, so that we have larger trauma rooms where they can care for the multitude of patients that we see. We have better throughput, which means patients don’t have to wait as long, which is important.”

Pam Cortez says the advantages also take into account better ways to self-manage the building’s energy needs in the event of a local disaster.

“The other piece of this building is that being located where it is it is above the floodplain and it also is a building that is self supplied by utilities so that it’s not dependent on this older facility. And that way if we were to have a flood or a seismic event we are much better prepared to be here and ready to provide critical services to our community.”

Salem Hospital’s buildings date back as far as 1953. Hospital officials say the project is more than worth the temporary changes, but they stress their appreciation to a community that seems to realize the value of having one of the most modern and convenient medical facilities in the nation.

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