Beaumont Health to Open $121M Emergency Center in Royal Oak Aug. 31

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Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak has completed phase one of its four-phase, $121-million emergency center expansion and renovation project that’s scheduled to open Aug. 31, and add a total of 99 private rooms, 54 observation rooms, and 4 trauma bays.

Already one of the top 10 busiest emergency centers in the country, the 125,000-square-foot facility provides patients and their families with a more private and spacious environment, while also assisting in the convenience of standard emergency center processes.

“We wanted to provide a patient- and family-centered environment with accommodations and amenities that better support the high-quality emergency care that consumers have come to expect from Beaumont,” says Rosanna Morris, president of Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. “The Emergency Center is our front door and it is often the first impression patients have of Beaumont. We want their stay in the emergency center to be a positive experience.

The new single-patient emergency rooms have doubled in size and feature large, sliding glass doors, a huge upgrade from the curtains that used to divide patients.

“Between adding shared space and creating a more private environment, those were two of the highest priorities,” adds Morris. “Each of these rooms can create the need that the clinicians will have in terms of visualizing what’s going on in the room.”

One feature of the new rooms is the ability to run EKG, ultrasound, and other point-of-care tests using a computer at a patient’s bedside that feeds directly into an electronic medical record.

“We’re really pressing to do this bedside testing,” says Dr. Jeffrey Ditkoff of Beaumont Royal Oak’s emergency center. “I wouldn’t say we’re going to open and be at that goal completely, but we’re working all of our processes such that ultrasound comes to your room. Not everything, but as much as we can.”

The rooms also have double-sided cabinets built into each wall so nurses can stock supply cabinets without disturbing a patient, specialized remotes with call buttons for specific patient needs, and a television.

Skylights were also installed throughout the emergency center to promote a more comfortable healing environment, an idea that Dr. James Ziadeh, worked to incorporate in the renovations.

“I don’t know that there’s a lot of emergency departments around the country that have skylights with natural lights streaming through them,” says Ziadeh. “Just knowing what impact that has on the work environment – happy staff, happy patients.”

In addition, the new center provides the ability to take a trauma patient directly from the hospital’s helipad to a room via an elevator.

While trying to keep the patient’s comfort in mind, the behavioral health center rooms were upgraded with the intention of creating a more calming experience.

“We have a pretty large population of mental health patients seeking psychiatric care, and ideally you want to put them in an environment that’s safe for them because of their unique presentations,” adds Ziadeh. “The idea here is to keep things quiet and calm until we can get patients to the appropriate level of care they need.”

Additionally, the 54-room medical observation unit provides a more comfortable space for patients who need additional testing before returning home.

When the final three phases of renovation are completed at the end of 2018, the center will be fit with 73 private adult rooms, 20 semiprivate, 10 private behavioral health rooms, and 16 private pediatric rooms.