Truman Veterans’ Hospital on Wednesday unveiled a new surgical inpatient unit, a 15,300-square-foot expansion with 18 large, private rooms.
The expansion will help improve the healing process and provide more space for families to stay with their loved ones, said David Isaacks, director of the medical center.
The $7.8 million completed project officially will open Feb. 7.
Included in the new unit are four bariatric rooms for larger patients. These rooms are also isolation rooms and include anterooms. They feature ceiling lift systems that run from the bed into the bathroom.
All rooms are equipped with new wall-mounted vital-sign monitors and en suite bathrooms. The spacious rooms are all private, a feature the old surgical unit’s rooms lacked.
Heather Brown, strategic partnership officer for the hospital, stressed the importance of private rooms for veterans receiving care there.
“The rooms are bigger and better for quicker healing,” she said.
Not only are the new rooms private, but they also have plenty of extra space. The rooms are designed to accommodate large furniture for families to stay the night, Isaacks said.
“Healing happens better with family members,” he said.
Nurses also will benefit from this new facility. The wall-mounted monitoring systems will provide a place for on-the-spot data entry, Isaacks said. He said this will be quicker and will reduce errors. In the old unit, the nurses had to first record the data manually and were not able to enter it directly into the system.
The ceiling lifts add a safety feature, preventing patient falls and injuries and keep the nurses from injuring themselves while moving patients.
The project began in 2015 and took about two years to complete.