The newly renovated emergency department at the University Medical Center offers to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care in the Charlottesville area, officials say.
"Our space had become obsolete," said Robert Reiser, medical director of the emergency department. "The renovations give us the ability to treat more patients, to treat patients with technologically advanced special care, and improves the milieu that patients are treated in."
The seven-phase, $4 million project will hold an open house today.
Lasting over two years, the emergency department project included adding six new treatment rooms, a new security system and guard post, a new communications room with a computerized radio console for use with both ambulances and the Pegasus helicopter unit, and additional renovations to the outside ambulance area, Professor and Chairman of Emergency Medicine Marcus L. Martin said.
The project aimed to improve privacy and security within the department by adding five private examination rooms, a separate women's care area and separate pediatric department with a waiting and resuscitation room, said Mary Ann Himes Fields, director of marketing and development.
Furthermore, "we are now equipped with overhead X-ray machines in our two resuscitation rooms and an X-ray room right in the department, to enhance efficiency," Himes Fields said.
The department also will make aesthetic changes. One addition will be a mural by local artist David Currier featuring scenes from the area with "people of multiple cultures participating in various activities," Martin said. The mural will feature a plaque dedicating it "to patients, family and friends of Central Virginia and beyond."
"Although it's too early to tell of any long-range impact the renovations will have on patient flow and care, [the center] appears to be a brighter and more friendly working environment" as a result, he said.
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