A sneak peek of the new Marion hospital

It’s state-of-the art, offering services currently available plus others. It’s 10 percent bigger than the current one. It’s not a first-aid clinic.

Those were some of the messages heard Wednesday evening by community members getting a sneak peek at the replacement Smyth County Community Hospital, opening April 14.

The second of four scheduled tours, Wednesday’s took participants into public places and areas they’ll likely never see again unless they are doctors and nurses, places that will be off limits to the public who are not team members, as employees are called.

Throughout the building were things to marvel at, from a million-dollar nuclear medicine scanner to non-slip, no-wax floors that cost more up front but will prevent ongoing expenditure of maintenance dollars and emissions of floor-stripper fumes, SCCH Director of Operations Mark Montgomery said.

And the place is esthetically pleasing with its stone work, earth colors on the walls and floors, windows everywhere windows could be put, and a fireplace in the lobby. It’s the design of architectural firm Earl Swensson Associates that also designed the new Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon. There are similarities between the two facilities

SCCH CEO Lindy White has said the intent for the new hospital was to provide an environment more like home than a medical facility, and that theme carries through to patient rooms in care protocols as well as color choices. Montgomery said patients will be moved from their rooms to other places for care procedures that hurt or are uncomfortable.

“We want them to think of their rooms as safe places,” he said.

According to Montgomery and urologist Dr. Eric Sacknoff, the hospital is built around a philosophy of patient-centeredness. No more will surgical patients be wheeled between floors and through public areas to and from the operating room. Their rooms and the O.R. are located near each other.

The new hospital will have a total of 150,373 square feet, meaning it is 10 percent larger than the existing hospital’s 136,721 square feet.

SCCH will have four ICU and 14 inpatient rehabilitation beds and 13 examination rooms in the emergency department that is 75 percent larger than the current one.

The new hospital meets the environmental guidelines of the Green Building Council, and follows Leadership Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, principles.

Imaging and radiology services will be in a space twice as large as the current department.

“Radiology is the busiest area of a hospital,” the result of advances in technology not available 45 years ago, Sacknoff said.

The new hospital will have all the services available now, including inpatient and outpatient  surgical services, ophthalmology, urology, general surgery, orthopedics, ear, nose and throat, gynecology and plastic surgery, sleep lab services, cardiac/pulmonary rehabilitation, diagnostic testing, pediatrics, wound care, and medical cardiology.

Newer services like oncology and neurology clinics will be available in the replacement hospital.

The tour included a look at the new oncology mixing room and an appeal for financial support for the purchase of the needed equipment for the room. Smyth County Hospital HealthTrust began last fall a campaign to raise $250,000 to develop in-house capability to mix cancer chemotherapy infusions.

Currently, mixing is performed at Johnston Memorial Hospital as needed and transported by courier, steps that lengthen patients’ stay, according to SCCH officials.

Mountain States Health Alliance and SCCH will cover half of the $528,000 needed to equip the mixing room.

dkegley@wythenews.com