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Trinity unveils $75M renovation plan

BIG PLANS — Trinity Health System chief executive Matt Grimshaw unveiled a $75 million construction and renovation plan, Thursday, at Trinity Medical Center West. The project, which is fully funded through investments by former parent Sylvania Franciscan Health and current parent Catholic Health Initiatives, gets under way today with the renovation of the existing Trinity West cafeteria. -- Paul Giannamore

STEUBENVILLE — A five-story, 183,400-square-foot addition to Trinity Medical Center West will change the delivery of health care in the region, hospital officials said while unveiling the plan Thursday afternoon.

The $75 million project features new construction that will wrap from the current heart center entrance to near the emergency room at the opposite end of the building. When complete, including renovations to current hospital space, Trinity West will be an all private-room hospital.

“We believe this new building allows us to deliver health care in a way that no one else in the region can, or will, in the near future,” said Matt Grimshaw, Trinity president, in announcing the project.

The project is fully funded through investments by former parent Sylvania Franciscan Health and current parent Catholic Health Initiatives.

The first of three phases of work begins next week, with site work for new parking and a new service drive around the hospital. When that work is complete, which likely will be in August, the second phase will begin, including construction of the tower, designed to call to mind the original Ohio Valley Hospital (Trinity Medical Center East), which merged with St. John Medical Center (the current Trinity West) to form Trinity Health System 21 years ago.

The current Teramana Outpatient Center inside Trinity West will be demolished as the new tower is built.

In late 2020, as the tower is completed, work will begin to renovate the existing hospital.

“The highlights of this project really are centered around inpatient care,” Grimshaw said. The design includes a universal bed concept that Grimshaw said is “a giant step forward in how we provide care.”

“No longer will we have to move a patient to adjust his or her care. We will be able to adjust their care needs around where the patient is,” he said.

The rooms will be angled by 15 degrees so the patient faces a floor-to-ceiling window instead of a blank wall. Each room will have an oversized bathroom.

“The rooms deliver a hotel-like atmosphere so the patient does not feel like they’re in a hospital. The patient bed is angled toward the large oversized windows, with a clear separation of visitor space, workspace and patient space. It brings the very best of home into the hospital, so our patients have the very best amenities available in the region,” he said.

“This is a very big deal. This resets how we provide care and it repositions Trinity as the region’s leader for the Ohio Valley for years to come,” he said.

Mark Morelli, chairman of the Trinity board, said, “This project is going to give long-term viability and world-class health care right here in our hometown and for the surrounding communities.”

Morelli recalled the affiliation of the hospitals in the mid-1990s and discussions about consolidation of the buildings.

Dr. John Columbus, chief of staff, said he went to work 24 years ago at St. John Medical Center.

“The medical staff is very excited for this project. It changes the way we practice here. It brings us current, into the 21st century. It is going to be not just a building with rooms, but the way we do things, the attitude with which we do things. This project has taken a lot of vision and a lot of leadership to get going,” Columbus said.

He indicated there will be more to come in terms of technology in radiology, cardiology, surgery and, eventually, the emergency room as well.

Grimshaw said a benefit of switching to all private rooms is that insurance will cover the rooms because the hospital has no other options. He said the new building is about resetting how patient care is provided.

“The great thing about an all-private hospital is there is no additional cost to the patient. There is no upcharge. There is no request. Everybody simply gets it as our gift back to the patient for choosing Trinity,” Grimshaw said.

In the new entrance, guests will walk through a two-story atrium with a large central information desk. Central registration desks will be to one side of the lobby, which will feature open steel beams as a nod to the area’s industrial past, and a central fireplace. There will be space for a national food outlet.

The third floor will be the surgical services hub, with 16 new progressive care beds for surgical patients near the main operating rooms. The intensive care unit and the third floor North Tower will be connected on one floor.

The fourth and fifth floors will feature 36 single-patient rooms.

Grimshaw said a decentralized nursing model will allow nurses and staff to spend more time with the patients.

CHI is using JE Dunn for construction management, with bids being solicited from local and regional contracting firms to do the work, Grimshaw said.

During the past 21 years since the affiliation of Ohio Valley Hospital and St. John Medical Center, there have been discussions and plans for consolidating services on the Trinity West campus. Grimshaw said it’s probably good that some early plans, which called for a 350-bed hospital campus, never were realized.

“When the first planning was done for a combined campus, the estimated size requirements were far different from what we look at today. A lot of what was done on an inpatient basis 20 years ago is being done on an outpatient basis. Our length of stay has dropped dramatically and the number of outpatient procedures has grown,” he said. “Today we are, in fact, looking at needs of about 200 beds.”

He said the new attitude the addition will engender already is being addressed. He said Trinity knew its patient satisfaction results were dropping. Grimshaw said some of that was related to the facility, but a lot of it was related to attitude and how staff and doctors treat people. During the past 12 months, under an initiative called Experience Distinction, patient satisfaction has improved by 20 percentile points.

“It has been through a concerted effort centered around reconnecting with our mission. Why are we here? What is our mission? What are our core values? How do we live those out on a daily basis and connect with our c-workers and our patients at a different level? It is working. We have re-energized our staff,” Grimshaw said.

Trinity has engaged Dynamis Advisors Inc., a national firm specializing in facility redevelopment, to create a comprehensive plan for re-use of Trinity Medical Center East. Parts of the building date to the early 20th century establishment of the Ohio Valley Hospital on Pleasant Heights.

Grimshaw said the patient tower and the Ross Park Professional Building were built in the 1970s and 1980s and “have a lot of life left,” though perhaps not for inpatient care.

He said there are a variety of other uses that the buildings could serve.

St. John Medical Center opened in 1960, replacing the former downtown Gill Memorial Hospital. Three new patient floors were added in 1967 and the two-story North Tower was added in 1974. The south wing, including surgery, radiology and the emergency department, were completed in 1979 with the Teramana Outpatient Center opening in 1990. A three-story addition was made to the North Tower in 2001, including the birthing center, two 20-bed private room patient floors and the two-room open heart surgical suite.

The separate Tony Teramana Cancer Center on the West campus opened in 1990 and an addition was completed there in 2010.

(See Saturday’s edition for more about what Dynamis Advisors will be doing regarding Trinity Medical Center East.)

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