The substantial construction of the new RiverView Hospital was completed on July 17, and the staff is now able to start moving into the new facility slowly. The hospital will officially open its doors when patients are transferred from the old hospital into the new building on October 25.
Mortenson Construction manager Jason Toso said it’s nice to see the building coming to life after two years. “We still have a lot going on, but it’s exciting to see things come to life with furniture moving in, a lot of the finishes getting down, and just wrapping up,” said Toso. “I have to take a moment quite often to think I’ve been a part of this Crookston team for two years now. It’s surreal to see it grown from rigid insulation rooms that we built to take a look at a mockup into the actual thing.”
Toso also added that the crew, which was at 90-100 people over the past five months, would shrink over the coming weeks and months. “For probably about the past five months, we’ve been running pretty steady with about 90-100 people on-site,” said Toso. “Since we reached our goal of allowing our customer to begin their move in on July 17, we are seeing a downturn as individuals complete their work and move on to other endeavors. If memory serves me correctly, I believe we have 33 miles of electrical wire running throughout the facility.”
The wiring includes many systems such as individually controlled delivery lights in the labor and delivery area, to white noise systems in-patient rooms to help them block out the noise from the corridor to sleep. The building will feature a 48-exam room out-patient clinic broken down into family practice and specialty pods on the main floor. RiverView’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Bruggeman explained doctors and nurses would work from centralized pods from which they will enter exam rooms. “Our new clinic space is four different pods with an on-stage, off-stage model,” said Bruggeman. “When you come to see a doctor in the clinic, you’ll get directed to one of the four different entrances, and the doctor will come from a work core area on the backside of the exam room to go through your appointment and take care of your needs that way.”
The second floor will house the in-patient units for overnight hospital stays featuring 21 rooms, including four ICU rooms. The story will also include labor and delivery, as well as four family suites, explains Bruggeman. “We have 21 total patient rooms,” said Bruggeman. “Three of those are labor and delivery rooms for new moms. Then we have 18 other general patient rooms and four additional family suites. They are actually like an adjoining hotel suite that you’ll be able to stay in and be in close proximity to your loved one in the event you need to stay in the hospital with them. It’s a nice amenity that we haven’t see too often in this region or the country.”
The second floor also offers views of the Red Lake River to the east and a rooftop green space to the west. Another added feature is a new infant security system. Bruggeman said providing more security for moms and babies was something RiverView had wanted to do for a while. “One of the enhancements is a new infant security system,” said Bruggeman. “Moms can be assured that no one will be coming and going into our secure zone while you’re up having a baby. We have a lot of tracking, alarming, and security in place to help alleviate some of those concerns. It’s something we wanted to do for a long-time, and it made sense to incorporate it into this new project.”
The security system will limit access to labor and delivery rooms to hospital staff, patients, and approved visitors using coded scanners. Additionally, draws for lab work, x-rays, and the pharmacy will all have new locations centralized to the exam rooms reducing patient’s steps taken within the hospital. And the new hospital adjoins to the current OR and surgery areas within the existing facility.
Staff will begin simulating hospital activities in the facility in a couple of weeks. Bruggeman said all the processes and procedures need to be tested to make sure they work before patients are in the building. “Near the end of August, most of the construction will be wrapped up, and we go into this period of orientation and training,” said Bruggeman. “All of these spaces are new to the staff as well, so in order to ensure that we have high-quality care delivery that you’re used to. We have to go through that training process, so they’ll get trained on new equipment, procedures, processes that are different from what they’re doing now so that we’re ready to serve patients when we open our doors at the end of October.”
Mortenson will stay on-site into November after the physicians and other hospital staff move into the new building. Then, their former offices will be converted into the new pharmacy located off the new hospital’s northern corridor.
