1
BY FELICE J. FREYER
Journal Medical Writer | September 27, 2004
Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl Finishing touches are under way at Rhode Island Hospital's new "bridge building," overlooking Dudley Street in Providence.
PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island Hospital is nearing completion of its $69-million "bridge building" over Dudley Street, which will house a new emergency department and new operating rooms attached to a two-story covered garage.
The building is the most visible part of a massive renovation effort that started in 2001 and will continue into next year at the sprawling hospital complex, by far the state's largest.
Other projects, including a cancer-treatment center that is almost done and a proposed pediatric imaging center that still needs Health Department approval, bring the total renovation costs to nearly $100 million.
The new emergency department, scheduled to open in February 2005, will be twice as big as the current one, to accommodate the 83,000 to 85,000 visits anticipated for 2005.
The new operating suite will open in late January or the first week in February, with some adjacent renovations to be completed in May.
"In our view, we're six weeks behind schedule," said Fred Macri, executive vice president. "That's not much considering the two severe winters we had to work through."
This winter for the first time, the weather will be irrelevant: The building is enclosed, with most remaining work occurring inside. The garage (located on Dudley Street, where the parking lot used to be) needs only the ramp to the street.
Last February, the hospital opened its $13.5-million cancer center, consolidating all its cancer services into refurbished space on the first and second floors of the Ambulatory Patient Center. All that remains to be done is installing an exterior elevator connecting the two oncology floors with the radiation center on the lower level. That should be completed next month.
Since the renovations, the cancer center has seen a 16-percent increase in the number of visits; hospital officials expect 17,500 visits in the first year, up from the 15,000 in past years, Macri said.
Another phase of the project, completed a year ago, was moving some outpatient services, including a diabetes center and physical and occupational therapy, to the Coro Building at Hoppin and Point Streets. The hospital spent $6 million on renovations to the building, which it bought in March 2001 for $28 million.
Next on the agenda, at a cost of $10 million, is a pediatric imaging center that will be established where the children's emergency room is now. The center will offer MRIs, CT scans and other diagnostic tests in an environment tailored to children. The Health Department, which under state law must approve major hospital construction projects, is expected to decide on the plan this month or next.
The hospital borrowed $31 million to help pay for the emergency department and $9 million for the cancer center. But it hopes to collect enough money from donations to pay off that debt and then some -- so the hospital can borrow more for future projects. The latest work, Macri said, is only the first half of a 10-year development plan that includes replacing the older beds and beefing up the neurosurgery department.
The hospital has already raised $32 million from its regular donors (including nearly $1 million from employees), said spokeswoman Nancy Cawley. She said about 250 people came to a dinner on Friday kicking off an effort to collect an additional $68 million from the public.
In 2003, for the first time in many years, Rhode Island Hospital didn't lose money on operations. In the fiscal year that ends this Sept. 30, the hospital expects to see similar results -- a positive, if razor-thin, margin of 1 percent, Macri said.
"We're quite pleased," he said, "that many of our efforts of make the place more attractive are paying off just enough to keep ahead of expenses."
From The Providence Journal
