Hospital breaks ground on new emergency care center

Last year, Manatee Memorial Hospital set a record for the number of people to visit its decades-old emergency room off U.S. 301 and 41 — 82,000.

“It’s a record that we have broken every year the last few years,” said Vernon DeSear, a vice president at Manatee Memorial, which is Manatee County’s safety net hospital and receives nearly all of the county’s under-insured and uninsured clients.

By fall of 2018, those 82,000 and many more projected patients will receive their emergency room care in a new $33 million Manatee Memorial emergency center, which will be much larger than the existing one and much more technologically advanced, Manatee Memorial Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kevin DiLallo said at its groundbreaking Tuesday.

“This is very exciting,” DiLallo told a crowd of about 100 who attended the groundbreaking on two acres of hospital property along Second Avenue East that used to be a doctors’ parking area.

The current ER, which was built in the 1980s and renovated in 2001, is 21,228 square feet, including the waiting room. The new ER, which will also fill the space taken by the soon-to-be demolished Annex Building, will have 46,900 square feet, DeSear said.

“We expect a 16 percent growth in the ER over the next five years,” he said.

Manatee Memorial Hospital was built in 1952 and had its grand opening in 1953.

Excitement surrounds new care center

“We’re just so proud to bring this emergency department to this community and to be a part of this community,” DiLallo told the crowd, describing his first visit to Manatee Memorial in 2010.

“I remember asking, ‘How do you get so many people in that ER?” DiLallo said, drawing laughter. “My second question was, “How do we get a new ER?”

The architect for the project is FreemanWhite Inc., and the contractor is Turner Construction Co.

The projected completion date for the new project is fall 2018, DeSear said.

DiLallo also thanked the hospital’s corporate parent, Universal Health Services Inc., for supplying the funds for the project.

“Manatee Memorial has been rooted in this community since 1953,” DiLallo said. “In 1953 we completed the main tower, right behind me. The Annex Building was completed in 1958, the Radials were added on in the 1960s and we finished our main tower in 2007. All through this we always stepped up to meet the needs of the community.”

Manatee Memorial Hospital last enjoyed a major groundbreaking in 2005 when the hospital began construction of it four-story wing facing the Manatee River. That $51 million expansion was finished in 2007 and included a new intensive care unit and new surgical centers, along with 104 new patient rooms.

But that upgrade did not include the emergency room.

“I think this is a very significant event,” said Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore, one of a large number of people who donned hard hats to turn ceremonial shovels filled with dirt at the groundbreaking. “Manatee Hospital is getting a much-needed new emergency room. I have been here since the original ER and now they are in desperate need for more space and a new ER.”

.

New center statistics

The Emergency Care Center will consist of 48 treatment spaces and is organized in four nursing team clinical care areas.

The new ER will boast a covered drive access with three staging and support areas for emergency vehicles and a canopy cover for public drop off.

There will be 24 universal exam rooms divided into two clinical care areas, including three behavioral health rooms, two resuscitation rooms, one bariatric room with integral patient lift, one gynecology room and two negative pressure/contact isolation rooms, one of which is designed to facilitate a high containment period.

The new ER will feature 24 rapid care vertical triage spaces, including eight Fast Track rooms and 16 Super Track. Track rooms are functionally able to flex as needed on demand, DeSear said.

“Emergency Care Center personnel will have convenient access to imaging, surgery, cath labs as well as patient care areas such as ICU and medical/surgical units,” DeSear said.

This story was originally published July 25, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Hospital breaks ground on new emergency care center."