Shelby Baptist grows with county:Hospital adds womens center, updates emergency dept.

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Faced with the challenge of keeping up with the area&8217;s booming growth, Shelby Baptist Medical Center has launched perhaps its most aggressive renovation and expansion since the hospital first opened in 1959.

Along with an updated Emergency Department, a new Women&8217;s Center was at the top of the list when Shelby Baptist began its recent redevelopment efforts, hospital representatives said.

&8220;Our expectant mothers now have the luxury of feeling like they are at home,&8221; said April Holcomb, director of business development and marketing at Shelby Baptist.

With rooms furnished with flat screen televisions, wood-grained floors and headboards, the ambience has more of a hotel feel than hospital.

&8220;We want mothers to &8216;have their baby close to home,&8217; one of our new mottos at the Women&8217;s Center,&8221; said Holcomb.

Art work on the walls hide clinical equipment along with inside the headboards.

When Shelby Baptist opened, it housed 35 beds. The facility is now licensed for 192.

The facility has aged with semi-private rooms that many patients are not comfortable with, Holcomb said. But a new four-story bed tower project is underway to erase that problem.

The bed tower will be located on top of the emergency department facing 7th Avenue. The tower will include all private rooms with construction planned for this summer following a Certificate of Need hearing in February.

The new emergency department is located in the old community center and will help serve a patient-load that has grown to the second largest in the Birmingham area behind UAB.

The ED has 25 private rooms with another expansion already underway. The entire facility is computerized with new technology and an online supply system.

Included in the ED are seven trauma rooms.

&8220;Our trauma rooms are WOW compared to what we had,&8221; said Holcomb.

Some rooms have outside access in the case of a bio-terrorist event or a situation containing contamination. Two rooms can be locked down and have zero contact with the patient population.

The North Lobby project is also still in the works. The main lobby will eventually be shut down to be more inviting and easier for patients, Holcombesaid.

&8220;We want the lobby to be more defining and include more faith-based symbols,&8221; said Holcomb.

The main entrance in the meantime will be in front of the women&8217;s center. When the project is finished the hospital will have two major entrances.

Everitt Simmons, MD in the emergency department said the hospital is more heavily staffed to accommodate the growth.

&8220;We are trying to staff ahead of our needs so we are fully prepared,&8221; said Simmons.

February marks the grand opening of the cardiology suite. Included will be a new heart catheterization lab and robotic surgery program.

President David Wilson said the new DaVinci Robot is a far cry from what the community sees Shelby&8217;s image as.

&8220;The people still see us as the county hospital compared to a larger metropolitan area, but now we are the larger hospital with the new technology. We are now more spacious, more comfortable and want the public to come and allow us to serve them,&8221; Wilson said.

Wilson joined the Shelby Baptist team in February and said that he is excited about the hospital&8217;s expansion.

&8220;I can&8217;t imagine a better time to be the administrator here,&8221; he said. &8220;We are growing with our community. We are providing services in a growing market and that is a great marriage.&8221;

Shelby Baptist has been owned by Baptist Health Systems for the past 10 years. Baptist has invested an excess of $100 million, Holcomb said, much of which has been spent in the last couple years.

&8220;We want to do everything possible to make our patients feel comfortable, and will continue to do just that,&8221; said Holcomb