Fort Wayne’s VA Medical Center is striving to rebound from “a very bad reputation,” an official told military veterans Tuesday evening.WARSAW – Kosciusko Community Hospital has embarked on a three-phase, $19 million renovation. The three-year project will turn all patient rooms into private rooms and add an operating room and a five-bed intensive care transition unit.
The 72-bed Warsaw hospital is part of Lutheran Health Network, which is owned by Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems. The hospital, which is about 175,000 square feet, will maintain the same bed count.
This is the largest project in the 34-year-old hospital’s history, updating about a third of the building, CEO Stephen R. Miller said Tuesday. Other areas – including obstetrics, emergency and administration – have previously been renovated, he said.
Work on Phase I began in February, but hospital administrators waited to announce the project until they decided they wanted some publicity, Miller said.
“We weren’t making a big deal about it,” he said.
By shifting some departments into vacant space the hospital owns, officials expect to minimize disruption to patients and visitors.
Kosciusko Community, which employs about 850, added an operating wing a couple of years ago. The second-story space above the seven operating rooms wasn’t finished at that time. About four years ago, the hospital acquired a two-story adjacent building formerly occupied by the Bowen Center, an independent mental health center that moved to another part of the hospital campus.
Miller said the purchase price for the 14,626-square-foot building is “irrelevant” to the project and not included in the renovation total. He declined to provide the information.
Phase I, expected to be completed in the fall, is budgeted at $8.3 million. Budgets for Phases II and III haven’t been approved by the hospital’s board.
Private or single rooms are increasingly common in hospitals, whether part of renovations or new construction.
Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne this month announced plans to invest $42.3 million to build a fifth floor that will allow the hospital to offer only private rooms. Parkview Health will offer more than 400 single rooms at Parkview Regional Medical Center, a $536 million facility expected to open in early 2012.
“It is the standard of care,” Miller said. “Everybody expects that these days.”
