By Julianna Duennes Russ – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Northeast Georgia Medical Center is opening a state-of-the-art expanded emergency department at its Green Tower. The Gainesville campus is currently home to the northernmost Level 1 trauma center in the state.
The new building is 927,000 square feet and 11 stories tall and includes an expanded emergency department on the first floor and a helipad on the roof. The facility sits to the north of NGMC’s Blue Tower, formerly known as the North Patient Tower.
The Green Tower’s expanded emergency department is designed to provide faster and more efficient patient care. A new ambulance bay directly connects to the emergency department doors, and the rooftop helipad expedites travel time for critically injured patients.
Four of its 10 operating rooms are larger to accommodate more health care personnel. Between residents, nurses and other providers, the previous trauma bays often became cramped. Dr. Matthew Vassy, director of trauma and acute care surgery at NGMC, said the Green Tower’s bays feel almost three times larger — and it makes a difference.
“There’s a whole team that takes care of critically injured patients,” Vassy said. “It’s important to have a space that’s big enough for all those people to work yet also have all the things that you need.”
The new trauma bays have a built-in pedestal for the recording nurse and monitors that project vital signs for the entire room to see, streamlining communication between providers.
All three of the new cardiac surgery operating rooms are designed with robotic surgery in mind, and the Green Tower integrates heart and vascular services provided by the Georgia Heart Institute, including diagnostic testing, a cardiac catheterization lab and open-heart surgery facilities.
The consolidation of these services aims to provide patients with a more seamless care experience.
“From a family perspective, you’re not traveling all over campus,” said Dr. Clifton Hastings, a cardiothoracic surgeon at NGMC. “Having it all consolidated — the resources for the family, resources for the patient and the care — that’ll be much better for patients and their families.”
The on-site cafeteria will offer a variety of options, including a sushi bar. Local art is featured throughout the building.
The facility will immediately add 96 patient beds to the Gainesville campus when it opens this month. By the time the Green Tower is fully built out, it will add 190 beds to the campus. Every patient room is 355 square feet.
Planning for the Green Tower began during COVID-19, and now it’s uniquely suited to combat another pandemic event.
The air-handling system within the building is designed so that any room can be subject to negative pressure. This method of pulling air into a room prevents contagions from spreading. Every hospital is required to have some negative pressure rooms, but in the Green Tower every patient room has that capability.
Approximately 80% of the $566 million spent on the project was commissioned within Georgia, with 29% spent in Hall County alone.
“We talk about our projects growing the greater good, and for us, being able to open this facility and take great care of the community is an honor,” said John Kueven, chief operating officer for Northeast Georgia Health System. “It’s a big deal because we’ve been able to keep a lot of the resources here locally.”
“I think it punctuates our mission statement in improving the health of the community in whatever we do,” Carol Burrell, Northeast Georgia Health System CEO, said at the Green Tower’s ribbon-cutting ceremony Feb. 1. “We put an exclamation point on that.”
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