'This is where I want to get my healthcare'
<p>An expansion of Kootenai Health has recently been finished, and houses a birthing center, neonatal intensive care unit and orthopedic care center. The new wing will be open March 15th.</p>
<p>Kim Anderson of Kootenai Health demonstrates how the interactive paitent care board, top, modernizes and improves a family's hospital experience while they are staying in a postpartum room. The care boards are available in every room in the new expansion, and allow patients to independently do things such as order food, request help and watch movies</p>
<p>Registered Nurses Tracy DeWitt, second from right, and Heather Krajic talk to visitors about the features of the neonatal intensive care unit on Thursday at the grand opening of Kootenai Health's new expansion. The neonatal intensive care unit houses private twelve rooms to accommodate up to fourteen babies, where mothers can stay with their babies at all times.</p>
<p>In every incubator in the new neonatal intensive care unit at Kootenai Health, a camera, called Nicview, allows family members in any part of the world to live stream their young loved one while the baby is being treated. The screen on the right is live streaming a baby doll in an incubator in the Kootenai Health neonatal intensive care unit on Thursday at the grand opening of the new Kootenai Health expansion.</p>
<p>More than 300 listen to Kooetnai Health CEO Jon Ness, left, speak on Thursday about the work that went into building the new expansion for the hospital and features it offers. The new expansion will be open on March 15th.</p>
<p>Kootenai Health CEO Jon Ness speaks during the grand opening of Kootenai Health's expansion on Thursday. The 100,000-foot expansion offers a ten to twelve-percent increase in the number of beds at the hospital, will employ about 225 more employees, and features a new birthing center, neonatal intensive care unit and orthopedic care center.</p>
<p>The Yuditsky Family Waiting Area in the new Kootenai Health expansion will house a small convenience store.</p>
<p>A baby doll rests in an incubator on Thursday in the new neonatal intensive care unit at Kootenai Health. Fourteen babies can be looked after in the new expansion, and are monitored with highly advanced technological systems.</p>
<p>The new Kootenai Health expansion features an employee garden, where hospital staff can get fresh air while at work.</p>
Constructed with 770 tons of steel, 2,267 light switches and enough electrical wire to stretch from Coeur d'Alene to Missoula, the east expansion of Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene is complete and officially opens March 15.
"It is going to wow the community and our patients," said Jeremy Evans, executive vice president of operations for Kootenai Health. "When they go in there they are going to say 'this is nice, this is amazing, this is where I want to get my healthcare."
And it did "wow" approximately 300 guests who attended the grand opening Thursday night.
"What strikes you first is just the craftsmanship of some of the construction," said former Kootenai Health CEO Joe Morris, who attended the grand opening. "There is a great welcoming feeling when you come through the door, which is important for a hospital because people come here when they are sick or when their relatives are sick."
Although the expansion does not open for more than two weeks, visitors were given tours of the 100,000-square-foot addition to the hospital while mingling with board members and others who helped make the project a reality.
The expansion came from the discovery of specific needs in the community, particularly for babies and baby boomers.
"In the last four years, Kootenai Health has grown by almost 50 percent," said Jon Ness, CEO of Kootenai Health. "We needed more capacity for our patients."
Along with the new lobby and reception area, the first floor of the expansion is encompassed by a state-of-the-art family birthing unit and neonatal intensive care unit, which Ness said is the "finest in the Pacific Northwest."
Ness said, historically, 350 Idaho moms deliver their babies out-of-state each year.
"We want Idaho babies to be born in Idaho," Ness said. "Providing the best facilities, physicians and staff was important."
The former birth center at Kootenai Health had only six rooms. There are now 10 rooms with far more space to accommodate families. Each room has jetted tubs and upgraded technology, such as the "Nicview" monitor — a camera that allows family anywhere in the world to see the baby. Two of the rooms in the neonatal unit are designed for twins as well.
The second floor is designated for orthopedic and neurology patients, including 32 new rooms that are 40 percent larger. Ness said the fastest growing demographic in North Idaho is individuals 65 and older and the fastest growing medical procedure in the country is knee replacements.
Overall, he said in North Idaho there is a growing need for the ability to do surgeries on knees, hips and spines. A rehabilitation facility is available on the second floor for those patients as well, to assist them in performing daily living activities, such as going up and down stairs.
All of the new rooms in the expansion are equipped with a large flat-screen television, but it is not just a television. They are called "interactive patient care boards," giving patients all the information they need about their doctors, nurses, instructions and messages right at their fingertips.
"It was so needed. We were out of space. And the technology that has been brought to it, it has the best feel when you walk in there ..." said Liese Razzeto, board of trustees chair for Kootenai Hospital District. "Really, you look at the needs of the community and when we do look at women and children, that's something that is really important to the people in the community as well as the ortho/neuro for the baby boomers.
The third floor is shelled in for future growth, but will mirror the second floor by adding another 32 rooms.
Kootenai Health broke ground on the project July 28, 2014, with an estimated cost of $57 million and a completion date of March 15, 2016. Evans said they finished "on time and under budget." He said they are still closing the numbers, but the current projection is favorable by several million.
Ness said even with the money spent, which came from debt, cash and philanthropy, they have no need to raise the cost of healthcare at the hospital.
Since the project began in 2014, the hospital has added 225 jobs. The hospital currently employs 2,776 people. About 586 workers were employed for construction of the expansion as well.
"Coming on the heels of a tough economic recession, maybe in some small way this was a positive boost for the local economy," Ness said. "It's not really the size of the project as much as the size of the heart of the people that made this project happen — the board, administration, donors, contractors, architect's, our employees ... it's really been a true team sport. Just watching all of those people contribute in their own way was the best thing about the project."