East Addition

On Friday, Jan. 23, the Department of Health Services performed an intermediate walk-through of the fourth floor east addition and the Phase 3 construction of the Emergency department, after which HBE and VVMC received a satisfactory outcome.

Work on the fourth floor OB/Perinatal Services department is continuing at a steady rate. All door frames have been completed. Sheet rock is at 75 percent completion, electrical distribution is 85 percent finished, and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) is 60 percent completed. Construction turnover has been moved forward to an earlier date of July 9.

On the fourth floor, some of the plumbing rough-ins require core drilling and sawing through dense concrete which, unfortunately, creates unpleasant noise and vibration throughout the rest of the building. At times this activity has been disruptive to patients and staff on the Yavapai Unit. Please be assured the majority of this work was completed Wednesday, Jan. 28.

Rick Peterson, vice president of Support Services, personally met with patients and family members, and service recovery was implemented.

Internal

Emergency Department:  Work continues on Phase 3A of the project which will open the new corridor from the north exterior into the building. The corridor will serve as an interim EMS entry into the ED, and also will be used by Materials Management, Plant Operations, EVS and those employees parking on the north side of the campus.

Eventually, the corridor will provide a direct route for visitors from the ED waiting area into VVMC’s main building. When this phase is completed on March 9, a new suite of six exam rooms will be available to support care of ED patients through the remaining renovation phases.

Phase 3B now is scheduled for completion May 5. This includes the new ED walk-in canopy, waiting, reception and triage areas. The completion of these areas will greatly alleviate ED patient difficulty with building access, way-finding, and ED capacity constraints which have been challenging throughout this project.

Phase 4 converts the existing waiting room and reception area into a new EMS and ambulance entry and three new trauma bays. Phase 5 converts the existing trauma area into three behavioral health holding rooms, and a staff support area, including kitchen, locker and equipment storage space.